The Saudi-led Arab Coalition Forces have targeted a meeting of Houthi commanders in Beit Al Faqih, Hodeidah, killing scores of the coup perpetrators.

The strike, which followed the typical rules of combat engagement, came after the Coalition had received confirmed intelligence reports on a terror attack being plotted by the Iran-aligned militias.

Field reports confirm that the militias are continuing to lose large numbers of their fighters across different battlefronts, with hundreds already fleeing en masse along with their military equipment, leaving the rebel commanders with no options but to force the defectors back to the battle fronts, where they are already losing the ability to mobilise more elements following the heavy losses they have sustained in their fights with the joint Yemeni Resistance Forces.

Source: khaleeg Times

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov on Wednesday described militants in Syria’s last big rebel-held enclave of Idlib as a “festering abscess” that needed to be liquidated.
Speaking after talks with his Saudi counterpart Adel Al Jubeir in Moscow, Lavrov said militants were using civilians as a human shield.

Lavrov told reporters that there was a political understanding between Turkey and Russia on the need to distinguish between the Syrian opposition and people he described as terrorists in Idlib Province.
“I hope our Western partners will not give in to (rebel) provocations and will not obstruct an anti-terror operation” in Idlib, Lavrov said at a press conference in Moscow.
The government of Syrian President Bashar Al Assad, backed by Moscow, says it aims to recapture Idlib, which has become a refuge for civilians and rebels displaced from other areas of Syria, as well as terrorist forces.

The region has been hit by a wave of air strikes and shelling this month in a possible prelude to a full-scale government offensive.
Russia has deployed several frigates to the Mediterranean via the Bosphorus, part of what a Russian newspaper on Tuesday called Moscow’s largest naval build-up since it entered the Syrian conflict in 2015.
Lavrov said that Moscow was in close contact with Turkey on the situation in Idlib.
“This is the last hotbed of terrorists who are trying to speculate on the region’s status as a de-escalation zone, who are trying to hold the civilian population hostage as human shields and bend to their will those armed groups ready to engage in dialogue with the government,” Lavrov said.
“So from all points of view, this festering abscess needs to be liquidated,” he said.
Lavrov also said Russia remained in contact with the United States on the situation in Idlib and that communication was happening between their two militaries.

The Command and Control Centre of the Abu Dhabi Police received more than 51,000 calls from the public during the Eid Al Adha holidays, authorities revealed on Wednesday.
 
Residents have made 51,639 calls during the Eid holidays from August 19 to 25, including 32,970 calls from Abu Dhabi, 15,436 from Al Ain and 3,233 from Al Dhafra.
 
However, Abu Dhabi Police did not reveal the variety of the calls made during these days.
 
The Abu Dhabi Police revealed that it had received a total of 2.48 million emergency calls from the Capital in the first half of last year.
 
A majority of the calls varied between traffic and criminal reports, as well as inquires from the public regarding travel directions.
 
Other calls made included residents requesting for help after their vehicles had broken down on the roads.
 
Colonel Nasser Sulaiman Al Maskari, director of operations at the Abu Dhabi Police, stressed the importance of the Command and Control Centre, which work round-the-clock through high tech-electronic systems and advanced databases to receive emergency calls.
 
Col. Al Maskari added that the department immediately directs the patrols of the police authorities to the concerned sites once the calls are made by the public.
 

Source: khaleeg Times

With an aim to reduce carbon emission, Abu Dhabi Department of Urban Planning and Municipalities has launched a Smart Hub Platform, which offers 46 new digital services across all municipalities in the emirate.
 
The move is aimed at improving services and reduce the use of papers so as to protect the environment.
 
The Abu Dhabi City Municipality has designed the Smart Hub Platform with the aim of making it available for all clients in the three municipalities Abu Dhabi, Al Ain and Al Dhafra.
 
Besides, the digitisation of municipality services will help reduce carbon emissions by 40 million grammes annually, the Abu Dhabi Municipality has said.
 
These services, according to the municipality, are aimed at easing services for individual customers, service providers (consultants and contractors), government and developers.
 
Authorities explained that the digital infrastructure services include: two services in the field of registration, 39 for infrastructure design support services and five for infrastructure support services.
 
Officials said the digital services on the Smart Hub Platform related to infrastructure would provide modern services commensurate with the expectations of customers, while at the same time achieving the vision of the Government of Abu Dhabi in upgrading continuous services and respond to performance improvement and sustainable development requirements.
 
The digital platform is specialised in infrastructure services including construction and maintenance of houses, service roads, municipal assets, etc. It includes but not limited to the adoption of infrastructure designs and all components of infrastructure from the initial design stage to the infrastructure services.
 
The master digital transformation project across the municipalities is in implementation of the directives of His Highness Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi, Deputy Supreme Commander of the UAE Armed Forces, and Chairman of the Executive Council.
 
"Sheikh Mohammed has stressed the importance of moving ahead with the digital drive, as the government is keen on bringing happiness to people and offering ultra-modern and quick services to measure up to customer needs," Sami Abdul Qader Al Hashimi, director of technical support department for infrastructure at Abu Dhabi Municipality.
 
"The use of digital services aim to reduce the number of visitors to municipal offices as the customers will not be required to visit the municipalities and wait to submit the supporting documents for obtaining services. There are several direct and indirect benefits for the digital transformation of the municipal services."
How to avail of services

Customers can avail the services through the link: (https://smarthub.adm.gov.ae). Before signing in for the services, customers have to register in the Smart Pass portal of the UAE. Any citizen who has an account on this portal can directly avail the digital services on offer.
 
According to the municipality, the digitisation of services will reduce the printing of more than 1.5 million papers annually which will reduce carbon emissions by 40 million grammes.
 
The digital services will also provide an additional 42,000 business hours annually to customers and municipal officials and save Dh200,000 that has been spent in the process of infrastructure transactions.
 
The municipality has also revamped the smart services platform to fit the new services. The entire spectrum of the integrated digital services will have a considerable bearing on the response to customer needs and realising their aspirations.

Source: khaleeg Times

Five Saudi women pilots have obtained licences by the General Authority of Civil Aviation (GACA) that allows them to work as captains on Saudi Arabian Airlines aircraft.

The issuance of licenses to Saudi women is part of GACA’s drive to empower Saudi women to work in the aviation sector in line with the objectives of the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO).

Although around 500 Saudi women are employed by Saudia, the kingdom’s national carrier, mainly in the financial and IT departments and the reservation section, none of them are pilots.

Yasmeen Mohammad Al Maimani who made history by becoming in 2014 the second Saudi woman to receive a commercial pilot license from GACA, last year said she had high hopes for the opportunity to fly a plane for Saudia.

“My greatest dream was to become a pilot and my family fully supported me,” Yasmeen said. “My high school average was high and I could join some of the best universities to study medicine or architecture. However, the dream of sitting in a cockpit and soaring high in the sky was a potent and sweet dream that truly overwhelmed me.”

The family went along and they supported Yasmeen in all ways as she headed to Jordan where she joined a private aviation academy.

“I obtained my private pilot licence after one year and went back home to Saudi Arabia where my attempts to get recruited by an airliner failed. “I took up an administrative position in Rabigh Wings Aviation Academy and I became the head of pilots, but I did not fly any plane.”

Determined to make her dream come true, she continued with her studies and training.

Yasmeen said that she received an offer from a US flight academy to be their representative in the Arabian Gulf.

“I accepted the offer and they later gave me half scholarship to study for a commercial pilot licence. I accepted the offer and I was able to finish my studies one a half years and obtain the licence. I returned home in 2013 upon my graduation and the GACA endorsed my licence. I was looking forward to piloting a Saudia plane after I was duly certified by the Saudi authorities to fly a plane, but I am still waiting.”

Women in Saudi Arabia made history on June 23 when they were allowed to drive in the kingdom. Several other measures to empower them politically, economically and socially as part of an overhaul of the conservative society, may seem them allowed to pilot planes soon.

Source : Gulf news

The Saudi-led Arab Coalition Forces have targeted a meeting of Houthi commanders in Beit Al Faqih, Hodeidah, killing scores of the coup perpetrators.

The strike, which followed the typical rules of combat engagement, came after the Coalition had received confirmed intelligence reports on a terror attack being plotted by the Iran-aligned militias.

Field reports confirm that the militias are continuing to lose large numbers of their fighters across different battlefronts, with hundreds already fleeing en masse along with their military equipment, leaving the rebel commanders with no options but to force the defectors back to the battle fronts, where they are already losing the ability to mobilise more elements following the heavy losses they have sustained in their fights with the joint Yemeni Resistance Forces.

 Syria’s Permanent Representative to the UN Dr. Bashar al-Jaafari stressed that terrorist organizations are preparing for the use of chemical weapons against civilians in Idleb to accuse the Syrian Arab Army and to justify any aggression that might be launched by the governments of the states which back these terrorist organizations.

In a speech delivered during a session of the Security Council on the situation in Syria, al-Jaafari said “I put in your hands documented information on the preparations taken by Jabhat al-Nusra terrorist organization and the affiliated groups to use the chemical weapons against civilians in Idleb province to accuse the Syrian Arab Army and to justify any aggression that might be launched on Syria.”

He clarified that eight canisters of chlorine had been transported to Halouz village in Idleb paving the way for the scenario of the drama on the new chemical attack which represented by using poisonous chemical weapons against civilians by terrorists of the Turkistan Islamic Party and Jabhat al-Nusra, and accusing the Syrian government in order to launch an aggression on it.

He called upon the states which have a control on terrorist groups to work on preventing them from committing this crime.

Al-Jaafari indicated that some of the permanent member states at the Security Council are continuing the policy of insisting on mistakes instead of admitting their guiltiness and instead of shouldering their political and legal responsibility with regard to launching a terrorist war on Syria as they continue their aggression through using their “black banners and white helmets” to prepare for a new bloody drama using chemical weapons in northwestern Syria to obstruct the political process.

He affirmed that any aggression on Syria will be an aggression on a founding state of the UN and on the international and regional peace and security and will be a support for terrorists.

Al-Jaafari reiterated that Syria condemns the statement issued few days ago by the US, France and Britain, and it considers that using chemical weapons as unethical issue and it condemns its use in any place and under any circumstances.

He noted that Syria doesn’t possess any chemical weapons and it has implemented all its obligations with the Organization for Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW).

In a respond to the representatives of the member states, al-Jaafari said that Syria agreed on 2700 requests by the World Food Program (WFP) to deliver aid to the liberated areas and other areas and that Syrian Arab Red Crescent (SARC) in cooperation with its local and international humanitarian partners continues to deliver aid and tens of convoys to the areas in which civilians are in need for humanitarian aid.

He added that those who prepared the report of the UN General Secretariat adopted a politicized and negative approach that lacks objectivity, neutralism and professionalism.

He asserted that the Turkish military presence in some areas in Syria is an occupation that must end and that it supports the terrorism of the armed groups in these areas.

Al-Jaafari indicated that the report used politicized descriptions of some Syrian areas such as changing their description from besieged areas to difficult-to-reach areas or others, adding that the Syrian Government deals with all the Syrians based on its national role and it seeks to meet their needs without distinction.

He referred to the pressing need for dealing with the negative repercussions of the unilateral coercive measures imposed by some states on the Syrian people.

He called upon the UN General Secretariat to seriously engage with the Syrian Government for moving the humanitarian work in Syria to a new constructive stage that would contribute to launching the process of the reconstruction away from the US-Western blackmail.

He concluded by saying “we are serious regarding the track of the political process led by the Syrians only without any foreign interference and we are determined to restore security and stability and to preserve sovereignty, territorial integrity and independence of the Syrian Arab Republic and to guarantee the return of all displaced Syrians to their areas and homes.”

Al-Jaafari: Britain’s representative deliberately obstructed delivery of Syria’s statement at the Council

In a phone call with SANA, al-Jaafari said that Britain’s representative Karen Pierce, who is the current Security Council President, deliberately obstructed the delivery of Syria’s statement at the Council session.

He said that Pierce colluded in a Mafia-like manner with Under-Secretary-General for Global Communications Alison Smale, who is also British, to have the communications department cut off the television broadcast of his speech after two minutes of beginning the statement.

Al-Jaafari said that after listening to 16 statements, Pierce demanded to restrict his statement to five minutes, which he declined to acquiesce to diplomatically.

He said that Syria has filed a formal complaint to Smale and sent an official letter to Pierce demanding she circulate his full statement due to her obstruction of its delivery and to issue said statement as an official UN document so that all member states can be privy to its contents.

Al-Jaafari said that some states in the Security Council are deliberately using misdirection, lies, and hypocrisy in dealing with developments in Syria, criticizing the OCHA representative at the session for preventing erroneous information at the session.

Moscow warns against new western aggression on Syria

Russia’s Permanent Representative to the UN Vasily Nebenzya said that Jabhat al-Nusra terror organization and groups affiliated to it are holding over two million people in Idleb hostage and preventing them from leaving.

He said that members of the “White Helmets” have transported two toxic gas containers in Idleb province, not to mention that there are already eight containers of toxic gas, with the intent of using them against civilians in order to justify a new aggression by Washington, London and Paris on Syria.

Nebenzya warned against new western aggression on Syria based on fabricated news and allegations about using chemical weapons against civilians in Idleb.

The Russian diplomat stressed that the Syrian army does not possess any chemical weapons, pointing out that any western attack in Syria will harm the political process in the country and will not serve the interests of terrorist groups there.

Nebenzya also asserted that the illegal presence of the US forces in al-Tanf area violates Syria’s sovereignty and the international anti-ISIS coalition led by Washington attempts to control the country’s resources.

He noted that the western states are protecting terrorists and manipulating the chemical file to exert pressure on the Syrian government, meantime, the colonial policy continues with the aim of dividing Syria instead of focusing on political settlement and counterterrorism efforts in the country.

Source: sana

 Syria’s Permanent Representative to the UN Dr. Bashar al-Jaafari stressed that terrorist organizations are preparing for the use of chemical weapons against civilians in Idleb to accuse the Syrian Arab Army and to justify any aggression that might be launched by the governments of the states which back these terrorist organizations.

In a speech delivered during a session of the Security Council on the situation in Syria, al-Jaafari said “I put in your hands documented information on the preparations taken by Jabhat al-Nusra terrorist organization and the affiliated groups to use the chemical weapons against civilians in Idleb province to accuse the Syrian Arab Army and to justify any aggression that might be launched on Syria.”

He clarified that eight canisters of chlorine had been transported to Halouz village in Idleb paving the way for the scenario of the drama on the new chemical attack which represented by using poisonous chemical weapons against civilians by terrorists of the Turkistan Islamic Party and Jabhat al-Nusra, and accusing the Syrian government in order to launch an aggression on it.

He called upon the states which have a control on terrorist groups to work on preventing them from committing this crime.

Al-Jaafari indicated that some of the permanent member states at the Security Council are continuing the policy of insisting on mistakes instead of admitting their guiltiness and instead of shouldering their political and legal responsibility with regard to launching a terrorist war on Syria as they continue their aggression through using their “black banners and white helmets” to prepare for a new bloody drama using chemical weapons in northwestern Syria to obstruct the political process.

He affirmed that any aggression on Syria will be an aggression on a founding state of the UN and on the international and regional peace and security and will be a support for terrorists.

Al-Jaafari reiterated that Syria condemns the statement issued few days ago by the US, France and Britain, and it considers that using chemical weapons as unethical issue and it condemns its use in any place and under any circumstances.

He noted that Syria doesn’t possess any chemical weapons and it has implemented all its obligations with the Organization for Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW).

In a respond to the representatives of the member states, al-Jaafari said that Syria agreed on 2700 requests by the World Food Program (WFP) to deliver aid to the liberated areas and other areas and that Syrian Arab Red Crescent (SARC) in cooperation with its local and international humanitarian partners continues to deliver aid and tens of convoys to the areas in which civilians are in need for humanitarian aid.

He added that those who prepared the report of the UN General Secretariat adopted a politicized and negative approach that lacks objectivity, neutralism and professionalism.

He asserted that the Turkish military presence in some areas in Syria is an occupation that must end and that it supports the terrorism of the armed groups in these areas.

Al-Jaafari indicated that the report used politicized descriptions of some Syrian areas such as changing their description from besieged areas to difficult-to-reach areas or others, adding that the Syrian Government deals with all the Syrians based on its national role and it seeks to meet their needs without distinction.

He referred to the pressing need for dealing with the negative repercussions of the unilateral coercive measures imposed by some states on the Syrian people.

He called upon the UN General Secretariat to seriously engage with the Syrian Government for moving the humanitarian work in Syria to a new constructive stage that would contribute to launching the process of the reconstruction away from the US-Western blackmail.

He concluded by saying “we are serious regarding the track of the political process led by the Syrians only without any foreign interference and we are determined to restore security and stability and to preserve sovereignty, territorial integrity and independence of the Syrian Arab Republic and to guarantee the return of all displaced Syrians to their areas and homes.”

Al-Jaafari: Britain’s representative deliberately obstructed delivery of Syria’s statement at the Council

In a phone call with SANA, al-Jaafari said that Britain’s representative Karen Pierce, who is the current Security Council President, deliberately obstructed the delivery of Syria’s statement at the Council session.

He said that Pierce colluded in a Mafia-like manner with Under-Secretary-General for Global Communications Alison Smale, who is also British, to have the communications department cut off the television broadcast of his speech after two minutes of beginning the statement.

Al-Jaafari said that after listening to 16 statements, Pierce demanded to restrict his statement to five minutes, which he declined to acquiesce to diplomatically.

He said that Syria has filed a formal complaint to Smale and sent an official letter to Pierce demanding she circulate his full statement due to her obstruction of its delivery and to issue said statement as an official UN document so that all member states can be privy to its contents.

Al-Jaafari said that some states in the Security Council are deliberately using misdirection, lies, and hypocrisy in dealing with developments in Syria, criticizing the OCHA representative at the session for preventing erroneous information at the session.

Moscow warns against new western aggression on Syria

Russia’s Permanent Representative to the UN Vasily Nebenzya said that Jabhat al-Nusra terror organization and groups affiliated to it are holding over two million people in Idleb hostage and preventing them from leaving.

He said that members of the “White Helmets” have transported two toxic gas containers in Idleb province, not to mention that there are already eight containers of toxic gas, with the intent of using them against civilians in order to justify a new aggression by Washington, London and Paris on Syria.

Nebenzya warned against new western aggression on Syria based on fabricated news and allegations about using chemical weapons against civilians in Idleb.

The Russian diplomat stressed that the Syrian army does not possess any chemical weapons, pointing out that any western attack in Syria will harm the political process in the country and will not serve the interests of terrorist groups there.

Nebenzya also asserted that the illegal presence of the US forces in al-Tanf area violates Syria’s sovereignty and the international anti-ISIS coalition led by Washington attempts to control the country’s resources.

He noted that the western states are protecting terrorists and manipulating the chemical file to exert pressure on the Syrian government, meantime, the colonial policy continues with the aim of dividing Syria instead of focusing on political settlement and counterterrorism efforts in the country.

Source: sana

French renowned singer and supermodel, Carla Bruni, is expected to arrive this evening at Rafic Hariri International Airport in Beirut, accompanied by her husband, former French President Nicolas Sarkozy.

Bruni will be performing Monday night at the Beiteddine International Festivals.

Turkey launched air strikes in northern Iraq on Kurdish militants planning an attack, the army said on Tuesday, just days after Ankara began an offensive against a Kurdish militia in Syria.

The strikes took place on Monday in the Zap region of northern Iraq, not far from Turkey's southeastern border, the Turkish military said in a statement.

The army said it was targeting members of the "separatist terrorist organisation" -- Turkey's official term for the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK).

The militants were planning an attack on border security posts and bases, the military said, adding that the strikes destroyed weapons emplacements and shelters.

The PKK has been waging an insurgency against the Turkish state since 1984, and is blacklisted as a terror group by Ankara and its Western allies.

After a two-year ceasefire collapsed in 2015, the Turkish army intensified its military operations against the PKK in the Turkish southeast.

The Turkish air force has regularly carried out raids on PKK rear bases around the Qandil mountains in northern Iraq since then.

Turkish troops also sometimes stage ground incursions into the area.

The strikes in Iraq come four days after Turkey started a military operation, supporting Syrian rebels, against the Syrian Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG) militia in a bid to remove it from its western enclave of Afrin in northern Syria.

Ankara views the YPG as an offshoot of the PKK and repeatedly calls them "terrorists".

Qatar has thrown its weight behind Turkey's military offensive against Kurdish militia in Syria, coming to the defence of the "national security" of one of its closest allies.

"The state of Qatar reaffirmed its support for the efforts of the republic of Turkey to maintain its national security in the wake of the breaches and terrorist attacks carried out inside Turkish territories," foreign ministry spokeswoman Lolwa Al-Khater said.

Speaking to Qatari media on Monday, Khater said Turkey's launch of Operation Olive Branch was "driven by legitimate concerns related to its national security and securing its borders, as well as protecting the territorial integrity of Syria from the danger of secession".

Qatar's announcement came as Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan vowed to step up an offensive against Kurdish targets in neighbouring Syria and Iraq.

The operation, which includes an air and ground campaign involving Ankara-backed Syrian rebels, aims to oust the People's Protection Units (YPG) from Afrin in northern Syria.

Turkey views the YPG as a terror group and an offshoot of the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), which has long fought for autonomy.

The YPG denies aiming for separatism.

Turkey's offensive is complicated by the United States' relationship with the YPG, which it relied on to help oust Islamic State jihadists from their Syrian strongholds.

Qatar has grown closer to Turkey since June when Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Bahrain and Egypt cut all relations with Doha, which they accused of ties to Islamist extremists and Shiite Iran.

Ankara has since stepped in, providing food imports and political backing to Qatar amid the boycott.

The offensive on Afrin has also surfaced as a point of contention among the Gulf states.

UAE state minister for foreign affairs Anwar Gargash on Sunday warned that the operation risks further rupturing the unity of Arab states.

"The developments around Afrin reaffirm the need to rebuild and restore the concept of Arab national security," Gargash tweeted.

"Without that, the Arabs will be marginalised."

Turkey has a military base in Qatar and both countries have been unstinting in their opposition to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

Qatar's Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al-Thani was the first foreign leader to phone Erdogan during Turkey's failed coup in July 2016.

The US-led coalition has killed as many as 150 Islamic State fighters in an operation in the middle Euphrates River Valley in Syria, officials said Tuesday.

According to a coalition statement, the air strikes took place Saturday near Al-Shafah, in Deir Ezzor province, on an IS headquarters where the jihadists appeared to have been "massing for movement."

"The precision strikes were a culmination of extensive intelligence preparation to confirm an ISIS headquarters and command and control center in an exclusively ISIS-occupied location in the contested middle Euphrates River Valley," the statement read.

While IS has lost most of the terrain they once controlled in Syria, they still remain entrenched in pockets along the middle Euphrates River Valley.

"There's still have a heavy fight going on," said US Central Command spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Earl Brown.

"We are continuing to go after those guys that are trying to reestablish themselves. It's a hard fight right now."

The coalition said that the Syrian Democratic Forces, a US-backed Arab-Kurdish alliance fighting IS, had assisted in target observation prior to the strike.

"The combination of intelligence and continuous eyes on the target ensured no accidental engagement of non-military personnel," the statement read.

The coalition's highlighting of the SDF's role comes as Kurdish fighters in northern Syria are under assault by Turkey.

Washington is treading a fraught line in Syria, on the one hand trying to maintain its relationship with NATO ally Turkey -- which views Kurdish fighters as terrorists -- while on the other continuing to support Kurdish ground forces that have been critical to the defeat of IS.

"Our SDF partners are still making daily progress and sacrifices, and together we are still finding, targeting and killing ISIS terrorists intent on keeping their extremist hold on the region," Major General James Jarrard said.

Canada announced Tuesday it will sign on the Trans Pacific Partnership, moving to diversify its trade relationships as Canadian, US and Mexican negotiators kicked off a sixth round of talks on a 1994 free trade pact that Washington has threatened to dump.

Canada had initially balked at joining the proposed TPP last year, acting as the main holdout in negotiations after US President Donald Trump decided in early 2017 to go it alone under his "America First" policy.

But with Trump also threatening to pull the United States out of the North American Free Trade Agreement and time running out to reach a deal on NAFTA, Canada found itself on the hot seat.

"We're seeing a lot of trade skepticism around the world in general right now," Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said in a speech at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.

"People are worried or become increasingly convinced that trade deals benefit the few, not the many, benefit a country's bottom line, benefit multinationals, but don't benefit ordinary workers," he said.

The prime minister described how governments must now "demonstrate convincingly" to workers the merits of free trade.

"That is what we're working very hard on in NAFTA and I know that the work we were able to do with our fellow CPTPP partners at this point is going to be good not just for Canadians but citizens of the entire group of 11 countries in Asia that are part of this," he said.

Canada's decision to join the TPP, which has been rebranded the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership or CPTPP, came after two days of talks in Tokyo.

The parties will aim to sign the deal to create one of the world's largest trading blocs by early March, said officials.

The agreement will incorporate all commitments from the original TPP, except for a limited number of provisions suspended temporarily, and some remaining issues to be finalized.

China is not included in the TPP, as the pact was initially driven by the former US administration as a counterweight to surging Chinese power in Asia.

- NAFTA negotiations -

In Montreal, Canada and Mexico, which is also a CPTPP member, signalled their readiness to offer concessions and to propose "creative solutions" to break a deadlock in negotiations and to ultimately convince the United States not to follow through on its threat to withdraw from NAFTA.

The pact, which Trump last week derided as "a bad joke," binds nearly 500 million consumers, and provides Canada and Mexico with privileged access to the US market.

This sixth round of NAFTA negotiations "will be critical," because the most contentious issues are on the agenda, according to a Mexican government statement.

"Everything will be on the table," commented Canadian Trade Minister François-Philippe Champagne, noting that 28 of the 30 NAFTA chapters had yet to be revised.

In a sign of its hardening protectionist stance, the US administration on Monday imposed duties on washing machines manufactured in Mexico and South Korea, as well as on solar panels imported from China.

Trump, however, said Tuesday he believed the NAFTA talks were "moving along pretty well."

"I happen to be of the opinion that if it does not work out, we will terminate it... so we'll see how it all works out," Trump said in the Oval Office.

The more contentious issues under consideration include adding a "sunset clause" that would automatically repeal NAFTA after five years unless it is renewed by the member countries.

Negotiators also will discuss the elimination of bi-national panels to resolve trade disputes, and Washington's demand for stricter "rules of origin" for the automotive industry.

The current agreement specifies at least 62.5 percent of vehicle components must be manufactured in one of the three member countries in order to be exempted from customs duties.

The Trump administration proposed raising the bar to a minimum North American content of 85 percent and requiring 50 percent US origin. The US-made requirement irritates Mexico and Canada, but a compromise is still possible on the volume of regional content, according to sources.

The Trump administration also has called on Canada to abolish its supply-managed dairy and poultry sectors.

At the same time, Washington would like to drastically limit foreign access to US government procurement.

The Montreal talks are expected to last until January 29, making this the longest bargaining session since the start of the talks six months ago.

Neil Diamond, one of the best-selling singers of all time, announced Monday he was immediately retiring from touring after being diagnosed with Parkinson's disease.

Sacked Catalan president Carles Puigdemont, in Copenhagen to muster international support for an independent Catalonia, has cited Denmark's autonomous territories Greenland and the Faroe Islands as models for a peaceful bid for independence.

But the model may be difficult to export, experts say.

"It's not easy I know but you're proof that it's possible," Puigdemont said Monday during a seminar on the Catalan crisis at the University of Copenhagen.

On Tuesday, Puigdemont was to meet with Danish MPs at the invitation of Magni Arge, a representative of the Faroese separatist party Tjodveld (Republicans).

No representatives from the parties that make up Denmark's centre-right government will be present.

Arge, who served as an observer for the banned Catalan independence referendum in October that saw a brutal police crackdown, said the purpose of the meeting was to take stock of relations between regional capital Barcelona and the central government in Madrid.

And for Puigdemont, the aim was to learn more about the road to independence being pursued by Denmark's former colonies.

The Scandinavian country -- a small parliamentary monarchy that has built its prosperity on reform, dialogue and consensus rather than social uprisings -- has since the 1950s gradually granted its former possessions increasing sovereignty.

Negotiations have occasionally been thorny, such as those on control of natural resources, but for the most part disputes are resolved through compromise.

"It's not a criminal act in Denmark to be in favour of the independence of the Faroe Islands," Arge told AFP.

- 'Legitimate' independence -

In the case of Greenland, it may be difficult for Puigdemont to draw any parallels at all.

The largest island on the planet, snow-covered and plagued by financial and social woes, has little in common with tourist magnet, wealthy Catalonia.

Its 55,000 inhabitants are for the most part indigenous Inuits.

In 2009, the Danish parliament adopted a law granting Greenland self-rule, though Copenhagen retains control of foreign affairs and defence.

For the Faroese people -- most of whom are fishermen and sheep farmers -- their status as islanders, coupled with Copenhagen's rather distant interest in the archipelago, means their independence drive is not much of a concern for most Danes.

The Faroe Islands, which receive sizeable government subsidies, will hold a referendum in April on a new constitution which would give the archipelago the right to self-determination.

"Full independence for these two parts of the kingdom is broadly seen as legitimate, should those parts of the kingdom so desire," says Henrik Larsen, a social sciences professor at the University of Copenhagen.

That said, "the political elite would not like to see this."

The Danish government has made several concessions to avoid any unilateral declarations of independence like the one made in Catalonia on October 27, said Marku Suksi, a professor of international law at the University of Turku in Finland.

Spain has appeared less flexible or willing to make concessions on the question of independence.

"Denmark has shown once again that it understands democracy," Puigdemont said on Monday.

But in Catalonia, the reality is far more complex.

The region, one of Spain's wealthiest, has its own language and culture.

But of its 7.5 million inhabitants, more than half come from elsewhere or were born to parents from other parts of Spain. And as far as independence goes, views among the Catalans are evenly split.

Polls suggest, however, that more than 70 percent of Catalans want the issue decided by a legal referendum.

- Polar opposites -

Spain and Denmark are polar opposites when it comes to their recent histories.

Spain emerged from four decades of dictatorship in 1977. In 2011, a violent four-decade drive for Basque independence that claimed more than 800 lives came to an end.

Denmark has meanwhile flourished in peacetime to become one of the most prosperous and egalitarian countries in the world.

Within the European Union, Denmark is however seen as a fierce defender of its autonomy and sovereignty. It has negotiated several opt-outs on defence, justice and the single currency, and is occasionally perceived as overly indulgent of Danes' reluctance to deepen European integration.

"It depends which government coalition is in power in Copenhagen," says Maria Ackren, a political science professor in Nuuk, the capital of Greenland. "And right now, it's very conservative."

Danish Prime Minister Lars Lokke Rasmussen -- whose Liberal Party belongs to the same European Parliament group as Puigdemont's party -- has refrained from all comment on the Catalan crisis.

Two dozen countries agreed Tuesday to push for sanctions against perpetrators of chemical attacks in Syria, with US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson saying Russia "ultimately bears responsibility" for such strikes.

Twenty-four nations approved a new "partnership against impunity" for the use of chemical weapons, just a day after reports they were used in an attack that sickened 21 people in rebel-held Eastern Ghouta, which Tillerson said was suspected to involve chlorine.

"Whoever conducted the attacks, Russia ultimately bears responsibility for the victims in East Ghouta and countless other Syrians targeted with chemical weapons since Russia became involved in Syria," Tillerson said after the international meeting in Paris, and ahead of further talks with ministers from several countries on ending the conflict.

"There is simply no denying that Russia, by shielding its Syrian ally, has breached its commitments to the US as a framework guarantor" overseeing the destruction of Syria's chemical weapons stockpiles, as agreed in September 2013, he added.

Despite its pledge to destroy such weapons, the Syrian regime has been repeatedly accused of staging chemical attacks, with the United Nations among those blaming it for an April 2017 sarin gas attack on the opposition-held village of Khan Sheikhun which left scores dead.

There have been at least 130 separate chemical weapons attacks in Syria since 2012, according to French estimates, with the Islamic State group also accused of using mustard gas in Syria and Iraq.

- 'Bare minimum' -

Russia twice used its UN veto in November to block an extension of an international expert inquiry into chemical attacks in Syria, to the consternation of Western powers.

Moscow, backed by Iran and Turkey, has organised talks in the Russian city of Sochi next week aimed at finding a resolution to the brutal and multifaceted civil war.

Those efforts are running parallel to talks overseen by the UN, with the latest round due in Vienna on Thursday and Friday.

The talks have so far failed to make progress in ending a war that has left more than 340,000 people dead.

Tillerson said that "Russia's failure to resolve the chemical weapons issue in Syria calls into question its relevance to the resolution of the overall crisis".

"At a bare minimum, Russia must stop vetoing, or at the very least abstain, from future Security Council votes on this issue," he said.

At Tuesday's meeting, 24 out of 29 countries attending committed to sharing information and compiling a list of individuals implicated in the use of chemical weapons in Syria and beyond.

These could then be hit with sanctions such as asset freezes and entry bans as well as criminal proceedings at the national level.

Ahead of the meeting France announced asset freezes against 25 Syrian companies and executives, as well as French, Lebanese and Chinese businesses accused of aiding regime use of chemical weapons.

"The criminals who take the responsibility for using and developing these barbaric weapons must know that they will not go unpunished," said French foreign minister Jean-Yves Le Drian, who chaired Tuesday's meeting.

"The current situation cannot continue."

- 'Worst humanitarian crises' -

Tillerson, Le Drian and Britain's Boris Johnson afterwards held a closed-door meeting on Syria with the Saudi and Jordanian foreign ministers.

They discussed how best to "provide backing and some concrete reinforcement for UN efforts to advance the political process in Geneva, constitutional reform and the preparation for the holding of elections", ahead of a series of meetings on Syria, a senior US State Department official said, warning that "it's going to take time".

Johnson later hosted his US, Saudi Arabian and UAE counterparts at the British Embassy to discuss the Yemen conflict in a whirlwind of Middle Eastern diplomacy.

"The conflicts in Syria and Yemen have created two of the worst humanitarian crises of our time," Johnson said said ahead of the meeting.

"There can be no military solution to either conflict, only peaceful and carefully negotiated political solutions will truly end the suffering."

The Syrian war has grown even more complex in recent days with Turkey launching a new ground operation against Kurdish militia who it considers an offshoot of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK).

Tillerson met with Turkish foreign minister Mevlut Cavusoglu in Paris on Tuesday, though he did not hold a press conference to discuss their talks.

Last week Tillerson had warned that the US would remain in Syria until the situation was stable enough to remove President Bashar al-Assad from office.

Another potential challenger to Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi appeared in danger Tuesday of dropping out of the election race after he was accused of breaking the law with his candidacy announcement.

The allegations against General Sami Anan, a former armed forces chief of staff, mean that Sisi seems to be heading towards the March polls with most of his possible rivals already out of the running.

The general command of the Egyptian armed forces, in a video posted on Facebook, accused Anan of crimes including forgery.

Anan's campaign team said he had been arrested.

While there was no official confirmation of that, the armed forces said in the video that "all legal procedures must be followed regarding infractions and crimes committed that require his appearance before the relevant investigating bodies."

Several prominent figures who had been seen as potential challengers to Sisi had already either ruled themselves out or were sentenced to prison even before registrations opened on Saturday.

Sisi was elected president in 2014, a year after leading the military ouster of Islamist president Mohamed Morsi when he was himself commander in chief.

The video accused Anan of announcing his intention to run in the election "without getting the approval of the armed forces or following the required procedures to end his service in the military."

It also said Anan's announcement on Saturday "constitutes direct incitement against the armed forces with the intent of causing a rift between it and the great Egyptian people".

Anan was accused of forging official documents to erroneously suggest that his service in the armed forces had ended.

His candidacy announcement had come just hours after Sisi confirmed he would seek a second term in the March 26-28 election, the third since the 2011 overthrow of strongman Hosni Mubarak.

- 'Taken to prosecutors' -

One of Anan's top campaign aides, Hisham Geneina, told AFP that the presidential hopeful was arrested on Tuesday morning.

His detention came before the armed forces' statement, added Geneina, the former head of the Central Auditing Authority (CAA) who was sacked by Sisi in 2016 after he was accused of exaggerating the cost of corruption.

Mustafa Elshall, Anan's campaign manager, also reported the arrest on his Twitter account.

Ali Taha, a lawyer, said he was asked by the campaign to defend Anan, who in his announcement speech said he had already put in place a team of civilians to support his bid, including Geneina.

Anan served as armed forces chief of staff from 2005 until he was retired by Morsi in 2012.

When the longtime strongman was forced to step down by the Arab Spring protests of 2011, he ceded power to the Supreme Council of Armed Forces (SCAF), an interim executive made up of 20 generals in which Anan served as number two.

Anan's spokesman Hazem Hosni, a political science professor at Cairo University, said he had been meeting with the presidential hopeful and Geneina for months to discuss the country's situation and potential solutions.

"He sees that the state must have space for civil freedoms, political participation, and that killing politics this way in Egypt is not right," Hosni told AFP on Tuesday before the armed forces' video was posted.

- Not running -

Would-be candidates for the presidency must register with the National Elections Authority by January 29, but some have already stepped aside.

Former prime minister Ahmed Shafiq said on January 7 that he would not stand, reversing a pledge he made from the United Arab Emirates in November.

Shafiq had disappeared for 24 hours after being deported to Egypt last month following years in exile in the UAE.

Last week, Mohamed Anwar Sadat, a dissident and nephew of the late president of the same name, said he too would not run because the climate was not right for free elections.

Other potential candidates include Khaled Ali, a rights lawyer and 2012 presidential candidate, and military Colonel Ahmed Konsowa.

However, a military court in December sentenced Konsowa to six years in jail after he announced his intention to stand.

Ali meanwhile has appealed a three-month sentence in September on charges of offending public decency, in relation to a photograph that Ali says was fabricated and that appeared to show him making an obscene gesture outside a court house.

Myanmar blamed Bangladesh on Tuesday for delays to the start of a huge repatriation programme for Rohingya refugees, as the UN warned of the dangers of rushing their return to strife-torn Rakhine state.

Nearly 690,000 Rohingya escaped to Bangladesh after a brutal Myanmar army crackdown began in the state last August, while around 100,000 fled an earlier bout of violence in October 2016.

In signs the unrest was continuing despite the repatriation plans, Bangladesh officials said a huge fire burned and gunshots were heard in a village in Rakhine.

Myanmar agreed that from January 23 it would start taking back those refugees who had fled since 2016 and sought shelter in the squalid camps clustered in Bangladesh's Cox's Bazar district.

But a Bangladeshi official said Monday the programme would not begin as planned. Refugee Relief and Repatriation Commissioner Mohammad Abul Kalam said there was much more preparatory work to be done.

The complex process of registering huge numbers of the dispossessed has been further cast into doubt by the refugees themselves, who are too afraid to return to the scene of what the UN has called "ethnic cleansing".

Mainly Buddhist Myanmar sees the Rohingya in Rakhine as illegal immigrants from Bangladesh and denies them citizenship.

Myanmar has also been accused of drawing out the repatriation process by agreeing to take back just 1,500 people a week. It has prepared two reception camps on its side of the border.

Myanmar officials said that by Tuesday afternoon no Rohingya had crossed back into Rakhine, the scene of alleged widespread atrocities by Myanmar's army and ethnic Rakhine mobs.

"We are right now ready to receive... we are completely ready to welcome them according to the agreement," Kyaw Tin, Minister of International Cooperation told reporters in Naypyidaw, Myanmar's capital.

"We have seen the news that the Bangladesh side is not ready, but we have not received any official" explanation, he added.

With hundreds of Rohingya villages torched and communal tensions still at boiling point in Rakhine, rights groups say Rohingya returnees will at best be herded into long-term camps.

Those who return must sign a form verifying they did so voluntarily and pledging to abide by Myanmar laws.

The UN refugee agency UNHCR said safeguards for potential returnees were still absent, while refugees continue to leave Myanmar and access for aid agencies and the media to Rakhine is restricted.

In a statement it urged Myanmar to implement advisory commission recommendations calling for security for all communities, freedom of movement and solutions for citizenship for Muslim communities.

"Without this, the risk of dangerous and rushed returns into a situation where violence might reignite is too great to be ignored."

- Not going back -

Myanmar has sent a list of more than 1,000 "wanted" alleged Rohingya militants to Bangladesh, while headshot photos of the suspects have been widely circulated inside the country.

In a sign of the tensions surrounding the issue, a second Rohingya leader was killed in Bangladesh camps on Monday -- allegedly after endorsing the returns programme.

Many in the camps are fearful of going back.

"We won't go there if they try to send us back... kill us here, because we won't go. If we go back, the Burmese (Myanmar) will kill us," 12-year-old Mohammad Ayas said at a camp at Cox's Bazar.

Others said repatriation was a pipe dream while people were still trickling into the camps.

Mohammad Amin, who arrived just last week, described villages being set ablaze and women assaulted.

Backing up his claim, a senior Bangladeshi border guard at Cox's Bazar said a "big fire" was seen raging late Monday in an abandoned village in Rakhine.

It is believed the homes ablaze overnight belonged to Rohingya, the official said on condition of anonymity. The border region is controlled by Myanmar's forces, he added.

Another border official said he heard several gunshots before flames were seen leaping from the village.

Footage of the blaze quickly spread among Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh through social media, with many quick to blame Myanmar's security forces.

"The fire is designed to destroy the last remaining traces of Rohingya homes so that none of us can return to our villages," activist Rafique bin Habib told AFP.

He said without homes, those Rohingya who were repatriated would be denied access to their ancestral lands and forced to live in displacement camps.

Diplomats from 29 countries including US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson meet in Paris on Tuesday pushing for sanctions and criminal charges against the perpetrators of chemical attacks in Syria.

Tillerson and his French counterpart Jean-Yves Le Drian will also co-host a meeting of ministers ahead of a new round of peace talks in Vienna later this week and again in Sochi in Russia the week after.

The chemical weapons meeting from 1300 GMT comes after allegations Monday of a fresh chemical attack by the Syrian regime on Douma in the rebel-held region of Eastern Ghouta.

The alleged attack prompted a sharp warning from the US to Russia to rein in its ally, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

The regime has been repeatedly accused of using chemical weapons, with the United Nations among those blaming it for an April 2017 sarin gas attack on the opposition-held village of Khan Sheikhun which left scores dead.

There have been at least 130 separate chemical weapons attacks in Syria since 2012, according to French estimates, with the Islamic State group also accused of using mustard gas in Syria and Iraq.

A month after his election in May, French President Emmanuel Macron warned that chemical weapons were a "red line" that would prompt a response from France if used again, though he has declined to specify what that response would be.

- 'We won't let this lie' -

At Tuesday's meeting, countries will commit to sharing information and compiling a list of individuals implicated in the use of chemical weapons in Syria and beyond.

These could then be hit with sanctions such as asset freezes and entry bans as well as criminal proceedings at the national level.

The French initiative comes after Russia twice used its UN veto to block an extension of an inquiry by international experts into chemical weapons use in Syria.

"Today the situation is blocked at the highest international level," an aide to Le Drian said.

"The perpetrators of chemical attacks must know that they can be prosecuted and that we won't let this lie."

Ahead of the meeting France announced asset freezes against 25 Syrian companies and executives, as well as French, Lebanese and Chinese businesses accused of aiding regime use of chemical weapons.

The brutal seven-year war has grown even more complex in recent days with Turkey launching a new ground operation against Kurdish militia who it considers an offshoot of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK).

After the repeated collapse of UN-backed peace talks, a fresh round are due to be held in Vienna on January 25-26, followed by talks under a separate Russian peace initiative in Sochi on January 30, backed by Iran and Turkey.

Macron has been calling for months for the creation of a new Syria contact group that would bring together regional countries with the five permanent members of the UN Security Council -- Britain, China, France, Russia and the US.

Le Drian's entourage indicated that his meeting co-hosted with Tillerson later Tuesday is intended to take the first steps towards setting up the new group.

"Those within the Syrian system have found it extremely difficult to establish a path for peace," an aide to Le Drian said.

The meeting is designed to "find pathways towards and the means for a true political transition with the support of major powers, essentially the P5 and countries in the region directly affected," the aide added.

The Turkish army on Tuesday clashed with Kurdish militia in Syria in an operation that has already left three of its soldiers dead, as the United States voiced alarm that the offensive could endanger attempts to end the Syrian civil war.

Amid growing international concern over the four-day-old cross-border campaign into Turkey's neighbour, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan vowed that Ankara would emerge victorious.

Turkey on Saturday launched operation "Olive Branch" aimed at rooting out the Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG) militia, which Ankara sees as a terror group, from its Afrin enclave in northern Syria.

The campaign has caused ripples of concern among Turkey's NATO allies, especially the United States which is still working closely with the YPG to defeat Islamic State (IS) jihadists in Syria.

In his strongest comments yet on the offensive, US Defense Secretary Jim Mattis urged Turkey to show "restraint" and warned it could harm the fight against the jihadists.

Mattis, on a visit to Indonesia, warned the offensive "disrupts what was a relatively stable area in Syria and distracts from the international effort to defeat" IS.

US President Donald Trump is expected to express America's unease in a call telephone with Erdogan on Wednesday.

French President Emmanuel Macron joined in the chorus of concern when he spoke by phone to the Turkish leader on Tuesday.

"While recognising Turkey's security needs, Macron "told his Turkish counterpart of his concern over the military intervention," the French presidency said.

- 'Until the last terrorist' -

Turkish artillery on Tuesday pounded targets of the YPG inside Syria, the state-run Anadolu news agency said.

Turkish drones were also carrying out attacks, state television said.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitor said fighting was "very violent" to the northeast, northwest and southwest of Afrin.

As well as the artillery and air strikes, Turkish ground troops and Ankara-backed Syrian rebels have punched over the border several kilometres (miles) into Syrian territory, taking several villages, according to state media.

After intense exchanges, Turkey's forces took control of the hill of Barsaya, a key strategic point in the Afrin region.

The Observatory said 43 Ankara-backed rebels and 38 Kurdish fighters had been killed in the fighting so far. It has also said 28 civilians have been killed on the Syrian side but this is vehemently rejected by Turkey which says it is targeting militants only.

Sergeant Musa Ozalkan, 30, the first Turkish military fatality of the operation, was laid to rest with full honours in a ceremony in Ankara attended by the Turkish leadership.

"We will win and reach victory in this operation together with our people, together with Free Syrian Army," Erdogan assured mourners, referring to the Ankara-backed rebels.

Two more Turkish soldiers -- a first lieutenant and a sergeant -- were killed inside Syria on Tuesday in clashes with the YPG, the military said.

The campaign -- which Erdogan has made clear has no fixed timetable -- is fraught with risks for Turkey.

Two civilians have been killed inside Turkey in border towns in the last two days by rocket fire from Syria blamed on the YPG.

"This operation will continue until the last terrorist is eliminated," Turkish Prime Minister Binali Yildirim said.

Cavusoglu said in a television interview Turkey could extend the operation further to target other YPG-held areas in northern Syria including the town of Manbij and even areas east of the Euphrates River.

- 'Erdogan, Trump to talk' -

Ankara has expressed impatience with Western concern over the operation, arguing that the YPG is the Syrian offshoot of the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) which has waged a bloody three-decade insurgency against the Turkish state.

The foreign ministry of Qatar -- Turkey's closest Gulf ally -- gave its unequivocal backing to the operation.

Critical is the opinion of Russia, which has a military presence in the area and a cordial relationship with the YPG but is also working with Turkey to bring an end to the seven-year-old Syrian civil war.

Erdogan said Monday that the offensive had been agreed with Russia but this has not been confirmed by Moscow. Cavusoglu denied there had been any "bargain or deal".

However many analysts argue that Turkey would never have gone ahead with the offensive without the Kremlin's blessing.

Erdogan and Putin late Tuesday discussed the operation by telephone, the Turkish presidency said, but the details of the call were not disclosed.

Turkey's previous incursion into Syria was the Euphrates Shield campaign of August 2016-March 2017, targeting both the YPG and IS in an area east of Afrin.

The Turkish security forces have meanwhile imposed a clampdown against anyone suspected of disseminating "terror propaganda" against the operation on social media.

Ninety-one people were detained in 13 provinces in Turkey, state media reported on Tuesday, after 24 people were detained in other cities on Monday.

A Washington Post report that US President Donald Trump imitated the accent of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi in a private conversation about Afghanistan has set Twitter aflutter.

Someone identified as "Professor Qa @MuslimDiasporas," tweeted that it was "racist impressions of Indian accent" and "Sagar Keer @sagark1985" tweeted: "I wonder what the bhakts will think about Trump imitating Modi's accent."

And dozens of tweeters posted the extract from the Washington Post or commented on it.

The Hill, an influential Internet publication specialising in politics, likened the alleged incident to Trump using a word for excrement to refer to African countries and Haiti as claimed by a Democratic Party leader, Senator Dick Durbin.

However, Hillary Clinton, the Democrat who ran against Trump, has publicly dishonoured Mahatma Gandhi with her stereotype of Indian Americans, saying "He (Gandhi) ran a gas station down in St. Louis."

Some gas stations in the US are run by Indian, leading to one of the derogatory steretypes.

The UAE is among the world's most trusted nations, jumping one place to be ranked fourth in the 2018 Edelman Trust Barometer.

Released at the World Economic Forum on Monday, the data showed that the UAE residents' trust is even higher in the government as it is the world's second most trusted government after China.

Overall trust in UAE institutions - government, NGOs, media and businesses - jumped six per cent - one of the highest gains in the world - to 66 in 2018.

Hamad Buamim, president and CEO, Dubai Chamber of Commerce and Industry, said among the "key ingredients for the UAE's success has been the government's ability to work closely with the private sector and other stakeholders within our society."

"This special relationship has helped create an inclusive culture built on trust and tolerance, where people feel empowered to contribute towards a common vision. This unique approach to governing has helped accelerate progress, enhance competitiveness and position the UAE as a role model in how governments can effectively implement policies that foster happiness and harness the potential of its people," he said. 

Karthik Ramamurthy, regional director and head for consulting for MEA and India at Ipsos, said one of the most important factors leading to trust in an institution is transparency. 

"Transparency is the way the institutions deal with its stakeholders and are seen to listen to them across channels. The other component is decisive action post feedback to better the stakeholder experience. I believe both have been consistently pursued by the leadership of the UAE - examples being the happiness initiative, the DED's initiative for consumer rights, etc.

"This leadership mindset lays the ground rules of other institutions operating in the country. So, there is a continual effort to promote feedback from the residents and there is confidence that the feedback wouldn't go in vain because action is taken," Ramamurthy said.

Similarly, UAE residents' trust in media witnessed the biggest jump of 12 per cent, reaching 56. The citizens of China, Indonesia and India posed highest trust ion their media institutions.

The trust of UAE residents increased in platforms such as search engines and social media by six per cent. However, trust in UAE employers remained unchanged at 76 per cent, higher than the global average of 72.

The residents' trust in NGOs and businesses also grew six per cent to 61 and four per cent to 68, respectively.

The emirate, however, retained its fourth ranking as the most informed public in the survey of 28 countries.

The UAE Trust Index has steadily grown from 57 per cent in 2012 to 66 per cent in 2018.

Globally, China was the most trusted nation of 2018, followed by Indonesia, India, the UAE, Singapore, Mexico, the Netherlands, Malaysia, Canada and Argentina. 

Among the top gainers and losers, the US and Italy saw their trust ranking slumping nine and five per cent, respectively. Trust decline in the US was the steepest ever measured, according to Edelman.

China was the top gainer with a seven per cent rise followed by the UAE (six per cent) and South Korean (also six per cent).

Among other finds, technology (75 per cent) remains the most trusted industry sector followed by education (70 per cent), professional services (68 per cent) and transportation (67 per cent). Financial services (54 per cent) was once again the least trusted sector along with consumer packaged goods (60 per cent) and automotive (62 per cent).

Companies headquartered in Canada (68 per cent), Switzerland (66 per cent), Sweden (65 per cent) and Australia (63 per cent) are most trusted.

The least trusted country brands are Mexico (32 per cent), India (32 per cent), Brazil (34 per cent) and China (36 per cent). Trust in brand US (50 per cent) dropped five per cent, the biggest decline of the countries surveyed.

Nearly seven in 10 respondents worry about fake news and false information being used as a weapon.

His Highness Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice-President and Prime Minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai, today received Aga Khan IV, Imam of the Shia Ismaili Muslims, in the presence of Sheikh Maktoum bin Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Deputy Ruler of Dubai.

During the meeting, Sheikh Mohammed and Aga Khan exchanged views on a number of humanitarian issues and ways of boosting cooperation and coordination between the Aga Khan Foundation, AKF, and the humanitarian and charitable foundations in the country to encourage development work in poor countries and help people in need.

Aga Khan praised the volume of humanitarian and charitable assistance provided by the UAE to disadvantaged areas and underprivileged people in many countries of the world, especially in Africa and Asia.

He also expressed his thanks and appreciation to Sheikh Mohammed for the care, tolerance and equality to the Ismaili community and other segments of the UAE society without any distinction between race, religion, or color, making the UAE an honourable example of coexistence, harmony, as well as social and economic stabilit

The body of the martyr First Corporal Abdullah Mohammed Ahmed Al Dahmani arrived onboard a plane of the UAE Armed Forces at the Al Bateen Airport in Abu Dhabi on Tuesday.

Upon arrival at the airport, a special military ceremony was held to receive the body of the martyr in the presence of number of senior armed forces officers.

To the cheers of a crowd fired by his promise to bring them jobs and prosperity, former football star George Weah was sworn in as president of Liberia on Monday, completing the country's first transition between democratically-elected leaders in three generations.

Weah, 51, takes over from Nobel laureate Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, who over 12 years steered the country away from the trauma of a civil war but failed to ease dire poverty.

"I have spent many years of my life in stadiums, but today is a feeling like no other," Weah said, as he thanked Sirleaf for "laying the foundations on which we can now stand in peace."

Weah played for a string of top-flight European teams in the 1990s and was crowned the world's best player by FIFA and won the coveted Ballon d'Or prize, the only African to have achieved this.

Dressed in a white tunic and green sash, he was sworn in at a packed stadium near the capital, Monrovia.

The presidents of several west African nations, along with friends and fellow African football stars including Cameroonian legend Samuel Eto'o, watched as he took the historic oath of office on a bible held by his wife, Clar.

His first priorities, he said, would be to launch a national debate on the fair sharing of resources and root out graft in public institutions.

"Together we owe our citizens clarity on fundamental issues such as the land beneath their feet, freedom of speech and how national resources and responsibilities are going to be shared," he said.

"It is time to be honest with our people. Though corruption is a habit among our people, we must end it," said Weah, declaring he had an "overwhelming mandate" to do so.

But he urged the public to pull together for the tasks that lay ahead, with the wounds of the past only now beginning to heal.

"United, we are certain to succeed as a nation, divided we are certain to fall," he declared.

"We have arrived here on the blood, sweat and tears and suffering of so many of our citizens, too many of whom died long before real equality," he noted, referring to the quarter of a million people killed in Liberia's 1989-2003 civil war.

Weah's election is a watershed moment for the country's poor, many of whom view his ascent from Monrovia's slums to the nation's highest office with a feeling close to reverence.

"He came from nowhere but today he became a president. It means a lot for me and I'm so happy to witness this in my own country," said Suah Collins, selling drinks at the stadium.

- Under pressure -

After losing his first run at the presidency to Sirleaf in 2005, Weah has spent a dozen years attempting to gain political credibility to match his popularity, becoming a senator in 2014.

He now begins his task with severe restraints on spending and outsized expectations from the population, as well as a depressed market for the country's main exports of rubber and iron ore.

More than 60 percent of its 4.6-million citizens are under 25, and many voted for Weah in the belief he would quickly boost employment. Liberia ranks 177th on the 188 countries in the UN's Human Development Index.

Sirleaf's last act in office was to sign into law the abolition of female genital mutilation and stronger protection for survivors of domestic abuse -- her final legacy to Liberian women enduring endemic levels of abuse and rape.

The last time Liberia had a transition of power by democratically-elected leaders was in 1944, when William Tubman was elected.

He died in office in 1971. Since then, no living president has handed power to another after a democratic vote.

Weah has had less than a month to prepare for government, rather than the three months initially scheduled, after a legal challenge delayed his election.

Analysts, while hailing Liberia's democratic feat, were also mindful of the rocky road ahead, not least the likely resistance to reform by the Liberia's establishment.

"He will need to manage expectations carefully: this window of optimism will be short," Elizabeth Donnelly, a research fellow at the London think tank, Chatham House, told AFP.

"Weah has already stated that he will seek more investment into the private sector -- he understands that Liberia has a large youth population, whose expectations and needs he must satisfy.

"The new president is talking about giving Liberian businesses to Liberians ... If the president can make that dream a reality he will fully get the hearts of all Liberians. Let us hope that this is not just a political statement," said Moses Kahn, a Liberian political analyst.

Western and Asian firms predominate in Liberia's commodities sector, while Lebanese and Indian migrants are influential in retail and services.

Catalonia’s sacked president Carles Puigdemont on Monday repeated accusations that the European Union is failing to defend fundamental rights in the wealthy Spanish region.

During his first foreign visit since leaving Spain to live in voluntary exile in Brussels on 30 October, Puigdemont told students at the University of Copenhagen the EU showed “failures” in the face of crises both inside and outside its borders.

“The EU has been a success in promoting freedom, democracy, prosperity and welfare on our continent,” he said. “However, we’re all aware of each failure every time there is a crisis.

“We saw it in Greece, we saw it in Ukraine, we saw it with the refugees and now we see it with the failure to defend the fundamental rights in Catalonia,” he added.

Charged with rebellion, sedition and misuse of public funds, Puigdemont faces arrest if he returns to Spain over his role in the independence drive.Catalonia’s parliament on Monday proposed Puigdemont as president of the region following a snap election in December in which separatist parties once again won an absolute majority.

According to the former leader “Catalan citizens see great concerns on some developments happening around EU institutions”.

“We are of course pro-Europeans but we cannot close our eyes for each failure, we want more integration but only if it leads to more democracy and a uniformed application of the EU law in all member states.”

A Vietnamese former state oil executive who was allegedly kidnapped from Germany was jailed for life on Monday for embezzlement, in the highest-profile corruption trial to target the communist country's business and political elite.

The case -- also involving 21 other officials, including a former party politburo member -- has captivated a country where the affairs of the powerful are normally kept secret and the downfall of senior politicians rarely happens in public.

Vietnam has mirrored China in its massive corruption purge, but critics say the campaign is as much about targeting political foes as it is about tackling graft in one of Southeast Asia's most corrupt nations.

The life sentence for Trinh Xuan Thanh, the former head of PetroVietnam Construction (PVC), capped a dramatic two-week trial -- closed to international media -- that included a tearful apology from the 51-year-old.

Thanh was sentenced to "14 years for mismanagement and life in prison for embezzlement", according to state-run VNExpress news site.

The jury said "no one at PVC dared use money for wrong purposes" without Thanh's direction, the report said.

The embezzlement charges carry a maximum sentence of death but prosecutors recommended life instead.

He faces a separate trial for embezzlement Wednesday that could see him put to death.

Former politburo member Dinh La Thang, who once chaired the board of PetroVietnam, was sentenced to 13 years in prison, while the remaining defendants got punishments ranging between 22 years in jail and a 30-month suspended sentence.

They are accused of causing $5.2 million in losses for the state during an investment by PetroVietnam into a thermal power plant.

Public opinion on the prison terms remained divided on social media Monday, though some were swift to decry the punishments as too light.

"These were sentences for street thieves," wrote Facebook user Huan Pham after the verdict was announced.

- China echoes -

Thanh's case has gripped the Vietnamese public since 2016 when he was spotted driving a flashy Lexus with government licence plates -- prompting corruption rumours about the official, who swiftly fled to Germany.

He was next heard of in August 2017 when German officials said he was plucked from a central Berlin park by Vietnamese security agents, in a Cold-War style episode that Germany described as a "scandalous violation" of its sovereignty.

Hanoi has denied he was kidnapped, insisting he returned voluntarily to Vietnam, where he appeared on state television and confessed to his crimes in a broadcast that some suspect he may have been pressured into.

Germany said after Monday's verdict it was "too early to evaluate the trial" pending further proceedings this week and possible appeals, but "took note" of the fact that he was spared the death penalty, said foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Adebahr.

Thanh will return to court for a fresh trial on Wednesday on embezzlement charges after he was accused of pocketing $620,000 of state funds.

The charges carry the death penalty.

Thanh's German lawyer, Petra Schlagenhauf -- who was denied entry to Vietnam before the start of the trial -- called on Berlin to keep pushing for his release and return to Germany, and said the trial did not conform with the rule of law.

It was the highest-profile corruption case in the one-party state, which has long vowed to tackle graft but rarely targets senior officials.

According to Transparency International, Vietnam ranks 113th out of 176 on its corruption perception index, worse than its Southeast Asian neighbours Thailand and the Philippines.

Scores of bankers, former officials and businessmen have been jailed as part of Vietnam's purge, including a senior banker sentenced to death for fraud last year.

Critics say the corruption purge is fuelled by political infighting and is led by Communist Party chief Nguyen Phu Trong, characterised as a conservative hardliner.

Observers say the campaign is similar to the anti-corruption purge in China, led by President Xi Jinping.

"It's a good way to keep political opponents on their toes," Vietnam expert Jonathan London told AFP, adding it echoes Xi's corruption purge of "real, perceived and potential opponents".

London said Thanh's conviction may be the "most spectacular" but he expects the anti-graft drive to continue.

Turkey Monday intensified its offensive against Kurdish militia targets in Syria as President Recep Tayyip Erdogan vowed there would be no stepping back in a campaign that has stoked concern among Ankara's allies and neighbors.

The Turkish military on Saturday launched operation "Olive Branch," its second major incursion into Syrian territory during the seven-year civil war.

The operation, where Turkish war planes and artillery are backing a major ground incursion launched with Ankara-backed Syrian rebels and Turkish tanks, aims to oust the People's Protection Units (YPG) militia from its enclave of Afrin.

Turkey considers the YPG to be a terror group and the Syrian offshoot of the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) which has waged a bloody three-decade insurgency against the Turkish state.

"We are determined. Afrin will be sorted out. We will take no step back," Erdogan said in a televised speech in Ankara, adding that Russia had given its backing.

But the operation is hugely sensitive as Washington relied on the YPG to oust Daesh (ISIS) from their Syrian strongholds and the Kurdish militia now holds much of Syria's north.

France has called for a U.N. Security Council meeting Monday to discuss concerns over flashpoint areas in Syria including the Turkish offensive.

State-run news agency Anadolu said ground forces had already taken 15 villages and other locations in their advance into Syria. Prime Minister Binali Yildirim said since Saturday 170 targets had been destroyed.

Meanwhile, Turkish artillery fired shells on YPG targets inside Syria and ground troops opened a new front by moving on Afrin from the town of Azaz to the east, state media said.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said a total of 21 civilians - including six children - had been killed in the operation. It said 13 Ankara-backed rebels were killed and 9 Kurdish fighters.

But Ankara has denied inflicting civilian casualties, with Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu accusing the YPG of sending out "nonsense propaganda and baseless lies."

Observatory director Rami Abdel Rahim told AFP in Beirut that the clashes were the fiercest since the start of the offensive. Turkey-backed forces had also taken a key hill in Afrin, both he and Anadolu said.

An AFP correspondent in the Turkish border village of Hassa saw more Turkish tanks heading towards Syria, enthusiastically cheered by locals.

In a sign of the risks to Turkey, rockets fired from Syria on the border town of Reyhanli on Sunday killed one Syrian refugee. One more person was killed in a similar attack Monday on the village of Kirikhan.

Yildirim said that the Turkish army had suffered no losses.

The Syrian Democratic Forces, an umbrella group dominated by the YPG, said in a statement that the operation amounted to "clear support" for Daesh.

The operation is Turkey's second major incursion into Syria during the seven-year civil war after the August 2016-March 2017 Euphrates Shield campaign in an area to the east of Afrin, against both the YPG and Daesh.

Erdogan has warned that those protesting against the operation will have to pay a "heavy price" and Turkish police detained 24 people on suspicion of disseminating "terror propaganda" against the operation on social media.

But as well as a complex military task, Turkey has to wage a sensitive diplomatic campaign to avoid alienating allies and provoking foes.

Western capitals are particularly concerned that the campaign against the YPG will take the focus away from eliminating Daesh after a string of successes in recent months.

U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said Monday he was "concerned" about the offensive, saying the United States was in Syria with the aim of defeating the extremists.

But Erdogan expressed impatience with U.S. demands to set a clear timetable, saying the campaign would be over "when the target is achieved."

"How long have you been in Afghanistan? Is that over in Iraq?" he said, referring to the current U.S. military presence in those countries which began with 2001 and 2003 invasions.

Erdogan has previously indicated that once control is imposed onto Afrin, Turkey wants to head west to defeat the YPG in the town of Manbij to the west.

Meanwhile Russia and Iran - who have a military presence in Syria and are working with Turkey on a peace process - have also expressed concern.

Erdogan insisted Turkey had discussed the operation in advance with Russia, and Moscow was in "agreement."

A crucial factor will be if the operation affects a Syrian peace conference to be held in the Russian resort of Sochi in late January.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Monday that Kurdish representatives would be invited, without specifying who, and accused the U.S. of encouraging separatism among Syrian Kurds.

Turkish authorities have detained 24 people on suspicion of disseminating "terror propaganda" against Turkey's military operation inside Syria, the interior ministry said on Monday.

The suspects are being held in a nationwide crackdown on those posting social media messages deemed to be supportive of terror groups, the state-run Anadolu news agency said.

The arrests come after President Recep Tayyip Erdogan urged national unity over the operation, in which one Turkish soldier was killed on Monday, warning those who respond to calls for protests will have to pay a "heavy price".

Those detained are accused of making propaganda for the Syrian Kurdish Peoples' Protection Units (YPG) militia deemed a terror group by Ankara and the target of Turkey's operation.

The Dogan news agency said investigations had been opened against a total of 57 people. Reports said that arrests took place in Istanbul and the Kurdish-majority city of Diyarbakir.

According to the agency and Human Rights Watch (HRW), 30 people were detained in Diyarbakir over their social media postings.

Among those taken into custody was writer and human rights activist Nurcan Baysal at her house late on Sunday, HRW said in a statement.

Baysal was detained in connection with her tweets calling for peace and condemning Ankara's offensive, the New York-based rights group said late on Monday quoting her lawyer.

Emma Sinclair-Webb of HRW said that "nothing in Baysal's tweets advocates violence", adding that she had long advocated for dialogue to end the decades long conflict between the Turkish state and the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK).

"The move against people who took to Twitter shows that Turkey's government is determined to censor critical voices," Sinclair-Webb added.

- Probe into pro-Kurd MPs -

Turkey views the YPG militia as "terrorists" linked to the PKK, which has fought against the Turkish state since 1984 and is designated as a terror group not just by Ankara but also its Western allies.

It is seeking to root out the YPG from its western enclave of Afrin in Syria close to the Turkish border.

Turkish prosecutors have launched an investigation into unverified photos shared on social media claimed to have been taken in Afrin, purportedly showing that the offensive inflicted civilian injuries, TRT state broadcaster reported.

Prosecutors in the eastern Van province launched an investigation into four lawmakers from the pro-Kurdish Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP) who on social media urged people to take to the streets, TRT added.

Authorities are also probing social media posts of another HDP lawmaker Alican Onlu, according to the broadcaster.

Turkish anti-riot police on Sunday blocked protests in Istanbul and in Diyarbakir against Ankara's military operation inside Syria.

The rallies had been called by the HDP, whose members are facing a series of legal challenges for alleged ties with the PKK.

The Ankara governor on Monday said that while the military operation was underway, demonstrations could not take place in the capital without the governorate's permission.

Turkish authorities have in the last years strongly cracked down on social media posts deemed supportive of "terror", prompting concern from some activists that freedom of expression was being damaged.

In the wake of the tragedy that struck a family in Fujairah, the UAE government is hotfooting the rapid installation of smoke detectors at all citizens' homes across the UAE.

The Ministry of Interior (MoI), led by by Lieutenant General Shaikh Saif Bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Interior, held an emergency meeting with the directorates of civil defence of all emirates, on Tuesday. The meeting discussed the best ways to implement the order issued by His Highness Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice-President and Prime Minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai, to link fire-specific early warning systems featuring indoor sirens in nationals' homes.
Sheikh Mohammed also stated that households that could not afford it would have it installed at the government's expense.

MoI will receive requests for installation of alarms on its website and smartphone app.

MoI has also launched a new system 'Hasantak' for detecting fires and smoke in a fast and smart way, said Major General Jassem Al Marzouqi, Commander-in-Chief of Civil Defence at MoI. Already in place at government buildings, all UAE buildings will be connected to the system by 2023, he stated.

The seven children in Fujairah suffocated to death from heavy smoke inhalation, after the fire broke out in the wee hours when they were sleeping.

Dubai Civil Defence on the ready
Major General Rashid Thani Al Matroushi, director general of the Dubai Civil Defence, stressed that starting Tuesday, Sheikh Mohammed's directives to connect residences to the Civil Defence's early warning system will be executed.

He said that registration for nationals will begin within a week, for the installation of the smart warning system, through the Civil Defence's website.

Major General Al Matroushi added that his team has worked out mechanisms to execute and overcome all the obstacles that prevent Emiratis from joining the programme and to accomplish the installation work in a short time. Installing the smart warning systems can be done within just 24 hours, and involves a smart data plaque placed at the home entrance, he said, adding that it features keys connected directly to the civil defence operations room. In the event of a fire, it can also make a call for help.

The Dubai Civil Defence chief expressed his utmost condolences and sympathies to the Al Sreidi family that lost seven of its children to the early morning fire.

Smoke detectors mandatory in Sharjah
Speaking to Khaleej Times, Colonel Sami al Naqbi, director general of Sharjah Civil Defence, said that the department has also started implementing Sheikh Mohammed's instructions effective Tuesday, based on the strategies of the MoI surrounding fire safety.

The department has started coordinating with the Sharjah Department of Social Services and the Ministry of Social Services to use their data on citizens, to install the fire system and smoke detectors.

Citizens can also approach the civil defence and register their installation request. The Sharjah Civil Defence has also made it compulsory, as of 2018, for all new apartments and villas to have smoke detectors, to ensure the safety of residents.

Last year, the Sharjah Civil Defence already installed 1,000 smoke detectors and alarms free of charge in citizens' homes.

Fire prevention is key, says Ajman
Top officials of the Ajman and Sharjah civil defences visited the condolence tent of the Al Sreidi family, expressing their deep sadness and condolences to the mother of the deceased children and other members of the family.

Speaking to Khaleej Times, Brigadier Abdul Aziz Al Shamsi, director general of the Ajman Civil Defence, said that Sheikh Mohammed's instruction on the installation of fire protection systems in all nationals' homes will prevent such tragic accidents - caused by the lack of safety measures - in the future.
Such tragedies leave an indelible impact on society's psyche, he noted, adding that prevention is better than fighting it after the fire occurs.

The Ajman Civil Defence is preparing the mechanism to implement the installation of the fire protection equipment and alarm systems, linked with operating rooms, to ensure quick response in emergencies, he noted.

Fire extinguishers, smoke detectors and regular maintenance of electrical wiring will be installed, in addition to training programmes and awareness workshops which will be carried out throughout 2018 as part of the Ajman Civil Defence's strategic plans.

Fujairah speeds up fire protection
In Fujairah, the emirate where the tragedy panned out, Brigadier Ali Tunaiji, director general of the Fujairah Civil Defence, said they have started work on Sheikh Mohammed's orders on an urgent basis. He urged all citizens to approach the civil defence and request for fire protection systems installation, immediately.

Smoke detectors and alarm systems will contribute a great deal in reducing suffocation caused by fires and gas leak incidents, he stressed.

The advanced protection systems to be installed will alert home owners into taking immediate action in the event of a fire. The civil defence is coordinating with two companies specialising in smoke detectors, to provide them at prices ranging from Dh2,500 to Dh5,000, making it affordable to all economic strata.

Dr Saifuddin departed the airport for the Al Masjid Al Burhani Complex in Al Qusais where thousands of Dawoodi Bohras accorded him with a warm welcome. They felicitated him on his recently celebrated 74th birthday in Surat, India. Syedna Saifuddin addressed the audience briefly and thanked the UAE government for their hospitality and the arrangements made for his visit.

Dr Saifuddin is in town to inaugurate the recently renovated 35-year-old Al Masjid Al Saifee in Deira. The inauguration is planned for Thursday evening followed by Maghrib prayers. The newly renovated complex has been extended to cater for the growing number of community members in the region.

Kinana bhaisaheb Jamaluddin, the Sultan Al Bohra's representative in Dubai, said: "The masjid and its recently completed renovation project represent the community's long history in Dubai and its continued renewal and growth in this homeland. We hope that the masjid is now ready for prayer and reinvigorated ibaadat for many more decades to come."

3.30pm

Following the tragic house fire, His Highness Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice-President and Prime Minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai, has directed the UAE Civil Defense to immediately install fire alarm systems in every citizen's home at the expense of government for those who can't afford it.

3.09 pm

Bodies of the seven children have been laid to rest.

3.05 pm

Sending condolences to the family, His Highness Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice-President and Prime Minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai tweeted, "We were shocked today to hear that seven of our children died in the fire incident. We express our deep condolences to their family and the people of UAE for losing Shouk, Khalifa, Ahmed, Ali, Sheikhah, Sara and Somaiya, children of Saied Al-Sreidi. We belong to God, and to God we return, we pray to god to grant them abode in paradise." 

2.59 pm

Saeed, a nephew of the mother of the seven kids, said he stayed in Dibba Al Fujairah while his aunt, lives alone in her house at Rol Dhadna. "As far as I know, the fire broke out around 3 am. My aunt wakes up at this time for a regular injection as she had an operation in Thailand a few months back."  

"When she opened the door of her room and entered the hall, she was shocked to see the dense smoke and flames," he added. 

"She could not move a step, and immediately called us for help. However, neither me nor my brothers or relatives and family members could enter the house because of the thick smoke."  

"We were all masked, but could not get inside the house on fire and failed to rescue anyone." 

2.39 pm

Ali Salem, a friend of Khalifa (one of the seven children) said that he was so sorry to know about the death of his close friend. "We used to sit, talk and play together. I will miss him so much." 

2.37 pm

His Highness Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi and Deputy Supreme Commander of the UAE Armed Forces, sent his condolences to the family. He said, "With hearts that believe in god's destiny, and with great sorrow, we sadly received the news of the seven children's death in the suffocation incident, in Fujairah. 
We express deep condolences to their family and praying to God to shower his blessings on them, and grant their family forbearance and consolation."

2.34 pm

Mohammed Al Saridi, half-brother of the seven children, says, "I am shocked by the death of my siblings. I was in the office when I received the tragic news and we are not sure about the reason behind the fire."  

2.29 pm

The funeral ceremony is underway.

2.18 pm

Talking to Khaleej Times, Essa Mohammed, the uncle of the seven children says, "I came to know about the tragic fire while I was at work. Some say the fire was caused because of the air conditioner, while others say it was the heater. We don't know the real cause of the fire yet." 

2.13pm

Among the deceased include twins Sara and Sumaia (5), Sheikha (10), Khalifa (13), Shooq (15), Ali (9) and Ahmad (11).

Major General Mohammed Ahmed bin Ghanem Al Kaabi, Commander-in-Chief of Fujairah Police, said that evidences are being collected to identify the reason behind the tragic fire. "We urge the public to install smoke and fire detectors to avoid such hazards in the future."

2.05pm

The bodies of the seven children would be arriving in a while and the funeral process would begin.  

2.02pm

Hundreds of mourners have gathered for the funeral of the seven children who passed away this morning. The long road leading to Rul Dadna Cemetery is crowded with over a hundred cars parked on both sides. 

The bodies of the children are yet to arrive and the Fujairah Police has cordoned off the area outside the cemetery to avoid congestion. 

The story so far

Seven sleeping children suffocated to death in the wee hours of Monday as a fire broke out in the hall of their home in Fujairah.

The fire caused by the air conditioner in children's room and spread to rest of the house.

The Emirati children's mother called the police control room in panic, saying her house was on fire and her children were inside the house in the Roll Dhadna area.

However, the police had been informed too late. According to the police, despite arriving at the site in a "record time", emergency personnel from Dibba Fujairah found the seven children dead. Four boys and three girls - the eldest of them 13 and the youngest 5 - died in the tragic incident.

According to preliminary information, the mother woke up at dawn due to the burning smell of the fire in the house. She immediately called the police

Top officials of the force, including Maj.-Gen. Mohammed Ahmed bin Ghanem Al Kaabi, Commander-in-Chief, rushed to the spot. 

Maj-Gen Al Kaabi said they are still investigating the cause of the fire.

Recent villa fires in UAE

August 27, 2017: A villa catches fire in Al Ain, no casualties reported.

July 26, 2017: A man and his daughter were injured when a massive fire broke out in their villa located at Al Rawda area in Ajman.

July 21, 2017: A rat caused a gas cylinder explosion in a villa in Dubai, which led to a wall collapse, resulting in the death of a 32-year-old Asian maid.

May 30, 2017: A team of the Dubai Ambulance services rescued an entire family after they were trapped in a fire that broke out in their villa.

April 20, 2017: An Ethiopian maid died and three other maids sustained minor to serious injuries in an explosion caused by a gas leak in the kitchen of a villa in Al Jarf area, Ajman.

March 14, 2017: Twenty-year-old Emirati twin sisters suffocated to death after a fire erupted in their villa in Al Twar 3, Dubai.

October 22, 2016: Top Sharjah official among three killed in villa fire in Sharjah.

June 8, 2016: Three members of a Comoros family -- a 45-year-old mother and her two daughters -- were killed in a fire in their villa in Al Gafiah area of Sharjah.

February 23, 2016: The Sharjah Police rescued residents of a villa that caught fire in Kalba area. The family members narrowly escaped death as the fire broke out due to a short circuit.

November 16, 2015: A fire in a villa in the Mirdif area of Dubai injured nine people in Mirdif, Dubai.

Sheikh Hamdan bin Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Dubai Crown Prince and Chairman of the Dubai Executive Council, has been constantly updating his followers on Instagram about his current adventurous trips. 

From New Zealand, Scotland, Mongolia and London recently, Sheikh Hamdan has given his 6.1 million followers snaps which are a treat for the eyes.

Whether it is skiing on snow-clad mountains in Aspen in Colorado, USA, or walking down London streets, or enjoying the wilderness in New Zealand, Sheikh Hamdan has posted his whereabouts on his official Instagram account @faz3.

His followers are head over heels with his latest snap where he becomes a photographer for a couple in New Zealand. Sheikh Hamdan is seen dressed in casuals, capturing the moment for the couple who we assume were unaware who the photographer was! 

Sheikh Hamdan's brother Sheikh Mansoor bin Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Chairman of the Higher Committee for the Protection of the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, posted this throwback photo and aptly captioned it: "Kindness is a gift everyone can afford to give. @faz3"

The picture has since gone viral with over 600 comments with many envying the couple who were plain lucky to have Sheikh Hamdan take a picture of them! 

The UAE is among the world's most trusted nations, jumping one place to be ranked fourth in 2018 Edelman Trust Barometer.

Released at the World Economic Forum on Monday, the data showed that the UAE residents' trust is even higher in the government as it is the world's second most trusted government after China.

Applauding the achievement, His Highness Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, UAE Vice President and Prime Minister and Ruler of Dubai, tweeted this:Overall trust on the UAE institutions - government, NGOs, media and businesses jumped six points - one of the highest gains in the world - to 66 in 2018 Edelman Trust Barometer released ahead of the World Economic Forum.

Similarly, the UAE residents' trust on the media witnessed the biggest jump of 12 points, reaching 56 points. The citizens of China, Indonesia and India posed highest trust on their media institutions.

While the trust of UAE residents increased in platforms such as search engines and social media by six points. However, trust on the UAE employers remained unchanged at 76 points, higher than the global average of 72 points.

The residents' trust in NGOs and businesses also grew six points to 61 and four points to 68 - respectively.

The emirate, however, retained its fourth ranking as the informed public in the survey of 28 countries.

The UAE Trust Index has grown from 57 in 2012 to 66 in 2018.

Globally, China was the most trusted nation of 2018, followed by Indonesia, India, the UAE, Singapore, Mexico, the Netherlands, Malaysia, Canada and ArgentinaAmong the to top gainers and losers, the US and Italy saw their trust ranking slumping 9 and 5 points - respectively. Trust decline in the US was the steepest ever measured. While China was the top gainer with 7 points followed by the UAE (6 points) and South Korean (also 6 points).

Among other finds, technology (75%) remains the most trusted industry sector followed by education (70%), professional services (68%) and transportation (67%). Financial services (54%) was once again the least trusted sector along with consumer packaged goods (60%) and automotive (62%).While companies headquartered in Canada (68%), Switzerland (66%), Sweden (65%) and Australia (63%) are most trusted.

The least trusted country brands are Mexico (32%), India (32%), Brazil (34%) and China (36%). Trust in brand US (50%) dropped five points, the biggest decline of the countries surveyed.

Nearly seven in 10 respondents worry about fake news and false information being used as a weapon.

A lucky Canadian from Quebec has become a millionaire after winning the Dubai Duty Free Millennium Millionaire on Tuesday.

Besides the Canadian national, two Indians also won luxury vehicles in the draw held at Concourse B of Dubai International Airport today.

Nick Pacicco, $1 million Millennium Millionaire in Series 262's winning ticket number was 4548.

He is the seventh Canadian to win in the promotion since it began in 1999.

He was currently not available for immediate comment.

Following the Dubai Duty Free Millennium Millionaire draw, a Finest Surprise draw took place to win a luxury car and a motorbike.

Lata Bhardwaj, a former Dubai Duty Free employee from India, won a BMW 750Li xDrive M Sport (Sapphire Metallic Black) in Series 1676 with ticket no.0707. Bhardwaj bought the ticket on her way to Philippines for a holiday.

The other winner, Vibin PV, a 27-year old Indian living in Saudi Arabia became the proud owner of a BMW S 1000 RR motorbike in Series 326 with ticket no.0894.

"Thank you Dubai Duty Free for the good news, this is my first time to win in any draw so I am truly delighted, " said Vibin, a regular participant in the draw, for over a year.

The air was thick with gloom and agony as people gathered on Tuesday to mourn the tragic death of seven children of one Emirati family in a villa in Rol Dhadna in Fujairah. The kids were suffocated to death after a short circuit in the air conditioner triggered smoke and fire. 

Everyone from Sheikhs to senior government officials and residents thronged the condolence tents to pay their respects. Among them were Sheikh Hamdan bin Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Crown Prince of Dubai; and Lt-Gen Sheikh Saif bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Interior.

The condolence tents were thronged with people, locals and residents, from all across the country, who had come to offer homage and express their grief to the distressed family.Eng Hassan Al Yamahi, director of the Fujairah Municipality, said they were shocked by the sad news. "We are all here to stand by the bereaved family in their time of grief," he said.

Obaid Khalfan Al Khaddeem, director of the Fujairah Hospital, said they were rattled that all the seven kids - aged five to 15 - had died. "They were suffocated to death by the dense smoke before they could be shifted by the national ambulance to the hospital."

Brigadier Ali Obaid Al Tunaiji, director of the Fujairah Civil Defence Department, offered his condolences to the grieving family, and advised all families to have fire and smoke detectors installed. "These gadgets significantly decrease suffocation cases (due to smoke, fire, or gas leak) by giving away early alerts." The department has coordinated with two companies, specialised in smoke detection, to provide the life-saving devices at affordable prices. "Smoke detectors can be provided at Dh2,500 to Dh5,000."
Rashid Al Saridi, uncle of the deceased children, said the kids used to visit him at his house after they got back from school. "To have them all lost in one tragic fire is a disaster. What we can say is what we have all been urged to do and say in the holy Quran: 'To Allah we belong, and to him is our return."

He urged all families to always keep an eye on their kids and secure them wherever they are. "A disaster can happen in no time."

Abdullah Rashid Al Saridi, a cousin of the children, told Khaleej Times that they rushed to the house following a phone call from their aunt. However, they could not enter the room on fire because of the flames and dense smoke.

"We made several attempts to get inside the room and rescue the kids, but in vain," he said. "We called the police who managed to dash into the house, but it was unfortunately too late, as the children had died."

He added that the house in which the kids lived was built in the 80s. It was very old and in dire need of maintenance, and the weak electric cables couldn't take heavy load, he pointed out.

Ahmad Al Saridi, uncle of the kids, said he came to know about the tragic fire while he was in Abu Dhabi where he stays.  "I immediately rushed to Dibba Al Fujairah, and helped shift the kids to the hospital, but they were already dead."

The accident, in which seven Emirati children were suffocated to death in their villa, was reported too late (five hours late, perhaps), said a top Fujairah Police official. This made it difficult for the children to survive and be rescued.

The police are fully prepared to respond to any kind of emergency in less than four minutes to rescue victims and save lives, he pointed out. The operations room would have dispatched the rescue units along with civil defence to evacuate the occupants in the house, he added.

Police have launched an intensive investigation and discovered that short circuit in the AC triggered the fire, which spread quickly to rest of the villa. The cops are currently interrogating the maid and waiting for the mother to recover and stabilise to take her statement and version.

Devastated mother still in shock
The devastated mother of the seven Emirati children who died on Monday due to suffocation caused by fire that erupted in their villa is still in a state of shock, even as her kin are helping her to come to terms with her irreparable loss. "Her condition is a little better than it was yesterday when the tragedy struck," said one of her family members.

The widowed mother - identified as Salima Khamees Al Seraidi - has moved to her family house in Dibba Al Fujairah to recover from the massive shock, with help from her brothers and sisters.

Mohammed Al Seraidi, a half-brother of the deceased children, said that his father passed away four years ago after fighting a disease for a long time. He had left us all fatherless, but our mothers are very strong and coped with the colossal loss of their husband. "They raised us and gave us a good upbringing."

Talking about the deceased, he said, "I used to visit my sisters and brothers frequently to spend time with them. We loved each other immensely. Shooq, 13, was studying in Standard 10 at Al Raheeb School. She was my favourite because she was very kind and had a pleasant personality. The constant smile on her face was endearing. Sara and Sumaya were twin sisters who studied in KG 1. They were a source of joy for all. Shaikha was in Grade 4 and was a calm and beautiful girl. She was deeply attached to her mother. Khalifa was in Grade 7, Ahmed in 5 and Ali in 3. They were all wonderful and very supportive of their mother and sisters. Most of the days they all used to spend their time after school in our house which is in the same neighbourhood."

He said that the mother of the deceased kids "called her brothers and my uncle when the fire broke out using the maid's phone". The maid remained unaffected by the blaze as her room was outside the villa.
Rashid Saeed Al Seraidi, another half-brother of the deceased kids, said that he was attending class at school when his friends told him about the tragedy. He was shocked beyond measure and immediately left the school. Rashid rushed to their house and found police and civil defence vehicles all around the area. "They refused to allow me in; I cried a lot until I fainted. I used to love them all so much. Since our father passed away, we had become so closely knit. I just can't believe they are no more."

People from different emirates, government officials, schools students and teachers flocked to the condolence tent set up to mourn the death of the children

His Highness Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice President and Prime Minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai, reviewed the progress of Dubai's next tallest tower, Creek Tower, in the heart of the 6 sq km Dubai Creek Harbour.

Sheikh Mohammed's visit coincides with Emaar setting a new milestone in the construction of Dubai Creek Tower with the placement of concrete for the pile cap commencing in September last year, the core of the pile cap has now reached its highest point.

Over 50 per cent of the pile cap has now been finished with completion scheduled for mid-2018. 

Dubai Creek Tower's pile cap is an approximately 20 metre thick multi-layered, tiered reinforced concrete top that covers and transfers the load to the foundation barrettes. To date, about 25,000 cubic meters of concrete has been poured, weighing about 60,000 tonnes or half the weight of the CN Tower in Canada.About 12,000 tonnes of steel reinforcement has also been placed, nearly twice the weight of the Eiffel Tower. 

In October 2016, Sheikh Mohammed marked the ground-breaking of the tower, with the foundation work accomplished in a record time. The tower's 145 barrette piles were tested to a world record load of 36,000 tonnes and laid 72 metres deep to firmly secure the super-structure. In all, about 50,000 cubic metres of concrete will be used to fully cap the foundation piles.Over 450 skilled professionals from across the world are working on site highlighting the global collaboration that marks the construction of the new iconic structure. Designed by Spanish/Swiss architect and engineer Santiago Calatrava Valls, Dubai Creek Tower will feature several observation decks such as the Pinnacle Room and VIP Observation Garden Decks. 

Dubai Creek Tower will add incredible economic value to Dubai Creek Harbour, a mixed-use development located near the Ras Al Khor Wildlife Sanctuary that is home to over 67 species of water birds and is protected by the UNESCO Ramsar Convention.

The Ruler was accompanied by government and Emaar officials.

The UAE will not escalate the ongoing diplomatic crisis in the best interest of the safety and security of the residents, a military official said on Tuesday.

"The UAE Armed Forces will not escalate the current crisis with Qatar. We have instructions not to escalate and commit to regional safety and security," Brigadier General Hilal Saeed Al Qubaisi from the UAE military told reporters at a news conference held at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation in Abu Dhabi.

The press briefing was held to deny Qatar's recent allegations that UAE warplanes intercepted their aircraft and violated Qatar's air space.

"The allegations are fake and baseless," said Ahmed Al Jalla-af, assistant director general at Air Navigation Services, UAE Civil Aviation Authority. "There was no provocation or threat from the UAE side."

Al Qubaisi dismissed Qatar's allegations and said the two incidents involved a UAE fighter jet in training that crossed into the Qatar air space for a minute before coming back to its normal route over Bahrain, and a military transport aircraft that was on its regular route to Bahrain.

The UAE had accused Qatar of intercepting two of its passenger planes - Etihad and Emirates flights bound to Bahrain - on January 15. Qatar on its part, not only denied the allegation but made a counter allegation that UAE jet planes had intercepted theirs on January 2 and 5 in two separate incidents.
Al Qubaisi disclosed a series of military interceptions by Qatar on the UAE warplanes. He said Qatar fighter jets harassed UAE aircrafts twice on December 27, then on January 3 and 12, without any provocation.

The incidents involved a F-16, a Twin Otter aircraft and a C-130 cargo plane belonging to the UAE.

"On December 27 at 6.15, three fighter jets intercepted a UAE's military transport aircraft on its regular route from UAE to Bahrain and accompanied it for 25 minutes," said Al Qubaisi.

Showing supporting video footages and radar pictures, Al Qubaisi said it was clear Qatar had used an armed aircraft loaded with air-to-air weapons.

He said the UAE military aircrafts have switched to alternative routes over Saudi Arabia to avoid future incidents of interception by Qatar.

Unacceptable act on civilians
"The aircraft used for intercepting the passenger airplane was a fighter jet. We know it from the speed. The aircraft had reached 600 knots at an altitude of 8000ft," according to Al Jalla-af.

He added that Qatar is threatening the safety of UAE aircraft and the lives of civilian passengers by crossing the international air space borders that has been already agreed upon according to the Chicago Convention that dictates use of air space.

"By raising the complaint with the UN, what we are trying to ensure is the continuation of the safety and security of the civil aviation and residents. The escalation of the dangerous acts over civil aviation movements is totally unacceptable. We want these hostile acts stopped, and never repeated."

Calling it a desperate measure by Qatar, Al Qubaisi said they are under tremendous pressure - politically, economically and socially. "They want the Coalition countries to come to the table and negotiate with them. But I can say that these wrong actions will reflect badly only on Qatar. It does not affect UAE."

The UAE, along with Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and Egypt, have imposed travel, diplomatic and trade sanctions on Qatar since last June, accusing the Gulf neighbour of fanning terrorism in the region.

A tribute was paid to His Royal Highness Prime Minister Prince Khalifa bin Salman Al-Khalifa for declaring a half workday on the second edition of the National Sports Day on February 13. 
His Majesty’s Representative for Charity Works and Youth Affairs, Supreme Council for Youth and Sport Council (SCYS) Chairman and Bahrain Olympic Committee (BOC) President His Highness Shaikh Nasser bin Hamad Al-Khalifa hailed the Premier’s directives to ministries and government departments to hold sport events and engage employees.
He announced that the National Sport Day High Committee would line-up a string of events to encourage people to exercise and adopt healthy practices. He called upon all ministries, public establishments and privately-owned companies to organized sport events towards achieving the goals. He directed the National Sport Day High Committee to organize programmes engaging all social categories.
He underlined the keenness of the wise leadership on promoting initiatives aimed at encouraging all social categories to engage in positive practices that improve their healthy lifestyle. He stressed Bahrain’s strides in disseminating sport as a daily healthy activity, which contributes to build a society, shape a better future and boost development. He stressed the importance of the National Sport Day which, he said, will contribute to encouraging people to engage in sporting events and incorporating sport in their daily lives. 

Industry, Commerce and Tourism Minister Zayed bin Rashid Al Zayani today received Ambassador of Pakistan to Bahrain, Javed Malik.
The minister praised the bilateral ties in all fields, citing ambassador’s efforts during his diplomatic term in bolstering the economic cooperation between the two friendly countries, the embassy increased the volume of trade exchange and created new areas of cooperation.

Industry, Commerce and Tourism Minister Zayed bin Rashid Al Zayani today received Ambassador of Bahrain to Germany, Abdullah Abdullatif Abdullah, wishing him success in the duties of his diplomatic assignment.
The minister cited the remarkable growth of bilateral trade thanks to the efforts of both leaderships and mutual visits between senior officials in both countries that contributed to bolstering these ties and several agreements were signed in the fields of trade, investment and tourism.

The meeting also discussed various issues and topics related to the economic fields.

Dutch BMX cyclist Jelle van Gorkom has awoken from a coma and his life is no longer in danger, officials said Monday, cautioning however that he faced a long recovery.
The 27-year-old is "making good progress, and is out of acute danger," the Royal Dutch Cycling Union (KNWU) said on its website.
Van Gorkom, who won a silver medal at the 2016 Rio Olympics, was hurt in an accident on January 9 during training on a BMX track at the national sports centre in eastern Papendal near Arnhem.
He was placed in an induced coma for several days, suffering from broken ribs, a fracture to the face, a fractured skull and damage to his liver, spleen and kidneys.
The KNWU said Van Gorkom was now conscious, reacting to stimuli, making contact and recognising people.
But he remains "fragile" and "it is obvious that he will need a long rehabilitation with no guarantees that he will make a full recovery," the association said.

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Eurozone finance ministers approved a fresh cash injection for Greece on Monday to put the country on the road to finally leaving its long and painful bailout programme later this year.

The 6.7-billion-euro tranche is the latest from Greece's third financial rescue package since 2010, when its debt crisis brought the euro close to collapse.

The current programme agreed in 2015 runs until August this year, after which the southern European nation hopes to fully return to market financing and get back on its own two feet.

EU Economic Affairs Commissioner Pierre Moscovici said after finance ministers gave the green light to the latest tranche at a meeting in Brussels that 2018 "will be a decisive year for Greece".

"This will be the year when Greece finally leaves this long period of financial assistance, marked by very hard tests for the Greek people, but which allow Greece to emerge stronger and more resilient," France's Moscovici told a news conference.

Portugal's Mario Centeno, head of the Eurogroup of 19 finance ministers from the single currency, said they would also start technical work on debt relief for Athens, although that still faces opposition from Germany.

Greece's huge debt pile is equivalent to an unsustainable 180 percent of its annual economic output.

"Looking ahead we can start with the technical work on debt relief measures," Centeno said, particularly those that linked debt relief to economic growth.

- Protests against reforms -

The latest tranche will be split into 5.7 billion euros paid in February and the remaining one billion paid later in the spring once eurozone officials have checked that Greece has carried out all the reforms, the Eurogroup said in a statement.

Centeno, chairing the Eurogroup for the first time after replacing Jeroen Dijssebloem of the Netherlands, said the cash would cover debt servicing, arrears and boosting Greece's cash reserves, said Centeno.

"This is critical to ensure Greece's full market access," he added.

Thousands of people demonstrated in Athens one week ago against the set of around 100 austerity measures imposed by Greece's creditors, which include a politically-charged curb on industrial action.

The reforms also allow for the foreclosure and auction of properties owned by bankrupted borrowers. Both measures were fiercely opposed by leftists and trade unions.

The Greek government insists that the changes are limited, and Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras rejected criticism "as a shameless lie" that his left-wing administration was out to make strikes illegal.

Debt-laden Greece has received three multi-billion-euro bailouts since 2010.

The current rescue programme -- a package worth 86 billion euros agreed after months of talks that almost saw Greece crash out of the euro -- is financially supported by eurozone states but not the International Monetary Fund.

Bollywood superstar Shah Rukh Khan on Monday urged the economic elite to break down barriers of discrimination against women as they gathered for the Davos forum.

The 52-year-old star of Indian blockbuster movies such as "Chennai Express" and "My Name is Khan" appeared at a celebrity gala ahead of the official start on Tuesday of the World Economic Forum's annual meeting.

He received an award for his charitable work for victims of acid attacks.

"From them I have learned how courage can catalyse victimhood into heroism," he told the audience of international business leaders and officials.

Australian actress Cate Blanchett also received an award for her work with refugees and British singer Sir Elton John for his campaigning on HIV/AIDS.

The Davos meeting brings some 3,000 delegates from business, politics and civil society, to discuss ways to "make the world a better place", in the words of the WEF.

Among the issues on the agenda this year are gender equality and harassment, after allegations of sexual misconduct by powerful men in Hollywood spawned the #MeToo movement.

Khan brings heavy star power to the agenda, as one of the biggest celebrities in India, where high-profile cases of sexual violence have caused shockwaves in recent years.

"We, the powerful, need to get out of the way, to pick the barriers apart, the ones that give us names and races and colours and hierarchies," he said.

"That is what I have learned from my beautifully scarred women," he added, referring to the acid victims.

Catalonia’s sacked president Carles Puigdemont on Monday repeated accusations that the European Union is failing to defend fundamental rights in the wealthy Spanish region.

During his first foreign visit since leaving Spain to live in voluntary exile in Brussels on 30 October, Puigdemont told students at the University of Copenhagen the EU showed “failures” in the face of crises both inside and outside its borders.

“The EU has been a success in promoting freedom, democracy, prosperity and welfare on our continent,” he said. “However, we’re all aware of each failure every time there is a crisis.

“We saw it in Greece, we saw it in Ukraine, we saw it with the refugees and now we see it with the failure to defend the fundamental rights in Catalonia,” he added.

Charged with rebellion, sedition and misuse of public funds, Puigdemont faces arrest if he returns to Spain over his role in the independence drive.Catalonia’s parliament on Monday proposed Puigdemont as president of the region following a snap election in December in which separatist parties once again won an absolute majority.

According to the former leader “Catalan citizens see great concerns on some developments happening around EU institutions”.

“We are of course pro-Europeans but we cannot close our eyes for each failure, we want more integration but only if it leads to more democracy and a uniformed application of the EU law in all member states.”

To the cheers of a crowd fired by his promise to bring them jobs and prosperity, former football star George Weah was sworn in as president of Liberia on Monday, completing the country's first transition between democratically-elected leaders in three generations.

Weah, 51, takes over from Nobel laureate Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, who over 12 years steered the country away from the trauma of a civil war but failed to ease dire poverty.

"I have spent many years of my life in stadiums, but today is a feeling like no other," Weah said, as he thanked Sirleaf for "laying the foundations on which we can now stand in peace."

Weah played for a string of top-flight European teams in the 1990s and was crowned the world's best player by FIFA and won the coveted Ballon d'Or prize, the only African to have achieved this.

Dressed in a white tunic and green sash, he was sworn in at a packed stadium near the capital, Monrovia.

The presidents of several west African nations, along with friends and fellow African football stars including Cameroonian legend Samuel Eto'o, watched as he took the historic oath of office on a bible held by his wife, Clar.

His first priorities, he said, would be to launch a national debate on the fair sharing of resources and root out graft in public institutions.

"Together we owe our citizens clarity on fundamental issues such as the land beneath their feet, freedom of speech and how national resources and responsibilities are going to be shared," he said.

"It is time to be honest with our people. Though corruption is a habit among our people, we must end it," said Weah, declaring he had an "overwhelming mandate" to do so.

But he urged the public to pull together for the tasks that lay ahead, with the wounds of the past only now beginning to heal.

"United, we are certain to succeed as a nation, divided we are certain to fall," he declared.

"We have arrived here on the blood, sweat and tears and suffering of so many of our citizens, too many of whom died long before real equality," he noted, referring to the quarter of a million people killed in Liberia's 1989-2003 civil war.

Weah's election is a watershed moment for the country's poor, many of whom view his ascent from Monrovia's slums to the nation's highest office with a feeling close to reverence.

"He came from nowhere but today he became a president. It means a lot for me and I'm so happy to witness this in my own country," said Suah Collins, selling drinks at the stadium.

- Under pressure -

After losing his first run at the presidency to Sirleaf in 2005, Weah has spent a dozen years attempting to gain political credibility to match his popularity, becoming a senator in 2014.

He now begins his task with severe restraints on spending and outsized expectations from the population, as well as a depressed market for the country's main exports of rubber and iron ore.

More than 60 percent of its 4.6-million citizens are under 25, and many voted for Weah in the belief he would quickly boost employment. Liberia ranks 177th on the 188 countries in the UN's Human Development Index.

Sirleaf's last act in office was to sign into law the abolition of female genital mutilation and stronger protection for survivors of domestic abuse -- her final legacy to Liberian women enduring endemic levels of abuse and rape.

The last time Liberia had a transition of power by democratically-elected leaders was in 1944, when William Tubman was elected.

He died in office in 1971. Since then, no living president has handed power to another after a democratic vote.

Weah has had less than a month to prepare for government, rather than the three months initially scheduled, after a legal challenge delayed his election.

Analysts, while hailing Liberia's democratic feat, were also mindful of the rocky road ahead, not least the likely resistance to reform by the Liberia's establishment.

"He will need to manage expectations carefully: this window of optimism will be short," Elizabeth Donnelly, a research fellow at the London think tank, Chatham House, told AFP.

"Weah has already stated that he will seek more investment into the private sector -- he understands that Liberia has a large youth population, whose expectations and needs he must satisfy.

"The new president is talking about giving Liberian businesses to Liberians ... If the president can make that dream a reality he will fully get the hearts of all Liberians. Let us hope that this is not just a political statement," said Moses Kahn, a Liberian political analyst.

Western and Asian firms predominate in Liberia's commodities sector, while Lebanese and Indian migrants are influential in retail and services.

The US Senate on Monday reached a deal to reopen the federal government, with Democrats accepting a compromise spending bill to end days of partisan bickering that forced hundreds of thousands of government employees to stay home without pay.

The impasse, the first of its kind since 2013, cast a huge shadow over the first anniversary on Saturday of President Donald Trump's inauguration.

The Senate was poised to pass the compromise, but the shutdown will only end formally once the House of Representatives approves the measure keeping the government funded until February 8 -- which it is expected to do.

As the Senate convened for the day, the chamber's top Democrat Chuck Schumer announced that members of his party would vote with ruling Republicans to end the shutdown on day three, after a weekend of frustrating talks on Capitol Hill.

"After several discussions, offers, counteroffers, the Republican leader and I have come to an arrangement," Schumer said on the Senate floor, referring to Majority Leader Mitch McConnell.

"We will vote today to reopen the government."

But he warned McConnell that he expected Republicans to make good on a pledge to address Democrat concerns over the Deferred Action on Child Arrivals (DACA) program that shields immigrants brought to the country as children from deportation, but expires on March 5.

There are an estimated 700,000 "Dreamers" whose fates are up in the air.

"If he does not, of course, and I expect he will, he will have breached the trust of not only the Democratic senators but members of his own party as well," Schumer said.

- Dealmaker on sidelines -

Hopes that the shutdown, which began at midnight Friday, could be limited to the weekend were raised when a bipartisan group huddled for hours on Sunday trying to end the standoff, but they ultimately failed to reach a deal.

Then as Monday began, Trump goaded Democrats from the sidelines, accusing them of shutting down the government to win concessions on immigration, in service of "their far left base."

"They don't want to do it but are powerless," he tweeted, referring to Schumer and other Democratic leaders.

But Schumer said on the Senate floor it was time to get back to work, and lashed out at Trump.

"The great deal-making president sat on the sidelines," he said.The bill needed 60 votes to advance in the 100-member Senate, meaning Republicans -- who have a one-seat majority -- could not maneuver on their own.

Over the weekend, Trump encouraged the Senate's Republican leaders to invoke the "nuclear option" -- a procedural maneuver to change the chamber's rules to allow passage of a budget by a simple majority of 51 votes to end the shutdown.

But Senate leaders have been wary of such a move in the past, as it could come back to haunt them the next time Democrats hold a majority.

There have been four government shutdowns since 1990. In the last one, more than 800,000 government workers were put on temporary leave.

Essential federal services and military activity are continuing, but even active-duty troops will not be paid until a deal is formally sealed.

Turkish authorities have detained 24 people on suspicion of disseminating "terror propaganda" against Turkey's military operation inside Syria, the interior ministry said on Monday.

The suspects are being held in a nationwide crackdown on those posting social media messages deemed to be supportive of terror groups, the state-run Anadolu news agency said.

The arrests come after President Recep Tayyip Erdogan urged national unity over the operation, in which one Turkish soldier was killed on Monday, warning those who respond to calls for protests will have to pay a "heavy price".

Those detained are accused of making propaganda for the Syrian Kurdish Peoples' Protection Units (YPG) militia deemed a terror group by Ankara and the target of Turkey's operation.

The Dogan news agency said investigations had been opened against a total of 57 people. Reports said that arrests took place in Istanbul and the Kurdish-majority city of Diyarbakir.

According to the agency and Human Rights Watch (HRW), 30 people were detained in Diyarbakir over their social media postings.

Among those taken into custody was writer and human rights activist Nurcan Baysal at her house late on Sunday, HRW said in a statement.

Baysal was detained in connection with her tweets calling for peace and condemning Ankara's offensive, the New York-based rights group said late on Monday quoting her lawyer.

Emma Sinclair-Webb of HRW said that "nothing in Baysal's tweets advocates violence", adding that she had long advocated for dialogue to end the decades long conflict between the Turkish state and the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK).

"The move against people who took to Twitter shows that Turkey's government is determined to censor critical voices," Sinclair-Webb added.

- Probe into pro-Kurd MPs -

Turkey views the YPG militia as "terrorists" linked to the PKK, which has fought against the Turkish state since 1984 and is designated as a terror group not just by Ankara but also its Western allies.

It is seeking to root out the YPG from its western enclave of Afrin in Syria close to the Turkish border.

Turkish prosecutors have launched an investigation into unverified photos shared on social media claimed to have been taken in Afrin, purportedly showing that the offensive inflicted civilian injuries, TRT state broadcaster reported.

Prosecutors in the eastern Van province launched an investigation into four lawmakers from the pro-Kurdish Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP) who on social media urged people to take to the streets, TRT added.

Authorities are also probing social media posts of another HDP lawmaker Alican Onlu, according to the broadcaster.

Turkish anti-riot police on Sunday blocked protests in Istanbul and in Diyarbakir against Ankara's military operation inside Syria.

The rallies had been called by the HDP, whose members are facing a series of legal challenges for alleged ties with the PKK.

The Ankara governor on Monday said that while the military operation was underway, demonstrations could not take place in the capital without the governorate's permission.

Turkish authorities have in the last years strongly cracked down on social media posts deemed supportive of "terror", prompting concern from some activists that freedom of expression was being damaged.

Turkey's army launched a major air and ground operation in northern Syria on the weekend in a bid to oust a US-allied Kurdish militia that it considers a terror group.

The offensive follows an announcement by a US-led coalition fighting the Islamic State group that it is working to create a 30,000-strong border security force in northern Syria.

Around half of that force would be retrained fighters from the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces, which is mainly made up of fighters from Kurdish militia the People's Protection Units (YPG).

Here is a timeline:

- Major incursion -

On Saturday Turkey launches operation "Olive Branch" into Syria intending to oust the YPG militia from its enclave of Afrin.

War planes and artillery back a major ground incursion undertaken with Ankara-backed Syrian rebels.

Turkey considers the YPG to be a "terrorist" group as well as the Syrian offshoot of the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) which has waged a bloody three-decade insurgency against the Turkish state.

Ankara says it informed Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in writing of its offensive; this is denied by Damascus which says its air force will shoot down any Turkish warplanes entering its airspace.

Assad ally Russia urges restraint and withdraws troops from the zone in question "to prevent potential provocation".

The Kurdish militia say they will hold Russia as well as Turkey responsible for the attacks.

- 'Legitimate' concerns -

On Sunday Turkish tanks and soldiers enter the region of Afrin. Official media say that Ankara's forces have penetrated five kilometres (three miles) into Syria.

The US State Department calls on Turkey to "exercise restraint". But Defense Secretary Jim Mattis says Ankara has "legitimate" security concerns and had given Washington advance warning of the operation.

France calls for a UN Security Council meeting and calls on Turkey to end its offensive. Iran expresses concern and Syria's Assad condemns the operation.

Turkish police prevent protests against the operation in Istanbul and Diyarbakir, a Kurdish stronghold in Turkey's southeast.

- 'No step back' -

On Monday Turkish soldiers and their Syrian allies launch a new attack on the Kurdish militia from Azaz, about 20 kilometres to the east of Afrin.

"We will take no step back. We spoke about this with our Russian friends. We have an agreement," Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan says.

Deputy Prime Minister Mehmet Simsek says the operation will be short. Ankara says it aims to create a security zone within 30 kilometres of the border.

The Kremlin says it is watching developments attentively and is in contact with Damascus and Ankara.

US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson urges restraint on all sides. But he also says Turkey has a "legitimate right to protect its own citizens from terrorist elements that may be launching attacks against Turkish citizens on Turkish soil from Syria".

The Kurdish forces say Turkey's operation amounts to supporting IS and urge their Western allies to act.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights says 21 civilians -- including six children -- have been killed in the operation. Ankara says it has only hit "terrorists".

A Lebanese man fatally shot his wife in Beirut Monday, the latest in a string of murders a rights group said showed much work remained to eradicate violence against women.

A law on domestic violence was passed by Lebanon's parliament in 2014 but watchdogs said many changes were still needed.

A man shot his wife in the central Ras al-Nabaa neighbourhood of Beirut on Monday, the national news agency reported, adding that the killer was on the run.

Also on Monday, another Lebanese man was arrested after stabbing his wife in a village in the south, the same source reported. The woman survived the attack.

The latest violence brought to eight the number of deadly cases of violence against women since the start of December, according to Kafa, a watchdog advocating for gender equality in Lebanon.

A total of 17 cases were recorded last year in Lebanon, a country of around four million inhabitants, including those of women killed by their husbands but also that of a 15-year-old girl who committed suicide after a forced marriage.

In a high-profile case last month, Briton Rebecca Dykes, who worked for the UK Department for International Development at the embassy in Beirut, was killed by a taxi driver who tried to rape her.

Kafa's spokesperson Diala Haidar said recent improvements to the legal framework were failing to challenge "a society dominated by a machismo and that justifies violence against women."

"Working against this mentality and preventing the justification of violence against women is the hardest thing," she said.

The UN Yemen envoy Ismail Ould Cheikh Ahmed will step down as top negotiator for the war-stricken country next month, the international body announced on Monday.

A statement released by the United Nations did not name a successor for Cheikh Ahmed, who was appointed special envoy for Yemen in April 2015.

Cheikh Ahmed "does not intend to continue in his position beyond the end of his current contract ending in February 2018", the statement said.

"The special envoy remains committed to pursue through diplomacy an end to the violence and a political solution that meets the legitimate aspirations of the Yemeni people, until a successor is named."

In nearly three years as Yemen envoy, Cheikh Ahmed oversaw multiple rounds of UN-brokered negotiations between warring parties in Yemen -- all of which failed to yield a detente in the violence that has claimed more than 9,200 lives since 2015.

In May 2017, his convoy came under fire in the Yemeni capital Sanaa, which is controlled by the country's Iran-backed Huthi rebels.

The Huthis never claimed the attack and have accused Cheikh Ahmed, and the UN, of bias towards Yemen's Saudi-backed government.

In March 2015, shortly before Cheikh Ahmed's appointment, Saudi Arabia and its military allies intervened in the Yemeni government's fight against the rebels, who control the capital, much of northern Yemen and a string of Red Sea ports.

While both parties in the war stand accused of human rights violations, the Saudi-led military camp in particular has drawn criticism from the UN for civilian deaths as well as a crippling blockade on rebel-held ports and the country's international airport.

The UN has described Yemen as the world's largest humanitarian disaster, calling for $2.96 billion to combat imminent famine as well as cholera and diphtheria outbreaks in 2018.

Syria's main opposition group said Monday it needed "full and clear information" from Russia before it would agree to take part in peace talks to be held in Sochi next week.

The comments came during a visit by the Syrian Negotiations Commission (SNC) to Moscow as Russia gets set to host talks in the Black Sea resort on January 30 along with Syrian regime-backer Iran and rebel-supporter Turkey.

"The SNC will not make any final decision regarding the Russian initiatives until it receives full and clear information from Russia," SNC representative Nasr al-Hariri said at the start of a meeting with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov.

"We want to have complete information about the participants, the agenda and the objectives" of the Sochi meetings, he said in comments translated into Russian.

"Unfortunately, for the time being, we do not have a clear picture of all that."

The SNC has said it will attend fresh UN-hosted negotiations before the Sochi talks, which dozens of rebel factions have already rejected.

Lavrov said he was looking forward to a "constructive conversation" with Hariri.

"We consider counterproductive the attempts of some foreign players to question the sincerity of the efforts we are undertaking," Lavrov said.

Numerous rounds of UN-brokered peace talks have been held in Geneva, with the last one concluding in mid-December with no notable progress towards ending the country's war.

The UN-backed talks are to resume on January 25-26, this time in Vienna.

Key players Russia, Iran and Turkey have been sponsoring parallel peace talks since the start of last year.

The Sochi meeting is part of a broader push by Moscow to start hammering out a path to a political solution to end the war and has sparked concerns that the Kremlin is looking to sideline the UN.

The Damascus government has said it would attend the Sochi talks, which are aimed at setting up a new constitution for post-war Syria.

Syria's nearly seven-year war, which began as the regime brutally crushed anti-government protests, has claimed more than 340,000 lives, forced millions to flee their homes and left the country in ruins.

The United States has ordered more stringent inspections of air cargo from five Middle East countries, citing a June 2017 attempt in Australia to bring down a plane as evidence that extremist groups continue to target civilian aviation.

The Transportation Security Administration said Monday it had ordered seven airports in Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates to provide advance data on US-bound air cargo to US Customs and Border Protection for vetting before the cargo is loaded.

The agency did not cite any new specific threat for the move.

"The persistent threat to aviation calls for the world to raise the baseline on global aviation security across the spectrum," it said.

"These countries were chosen because of a demonstrated intent by terrorist groups to attack aviation from them."

TSA also pointed to Australian security officials' foiling of an advanced plot by three men with ties to the Islamic State group last June to bring down an aircraft with an improvised explosive device.

"The incident in Australia that occurred this past summer was an ominous reminder for TSA and all of our aviation partners, to include cargo carriers, that we need to continue our efforts to keep our skies secure," TSA said.

Last year US counterterrorism chief Nick Rasmussen said the Australia plot "shows that terrorists are aware of security procedures. They watch what we do and they try to learn from it."

The United States sternly criticized Russia's failure to rein in its Syrian ally Bashar al-Assad on Monday after reports of a new regime chemical weapons strike.

Rights monitors say 21 people, including children, suffered breathing difficulties Monday after an alleged chemical attack on a besieged rebel enclave outside Damascus.

Washington is not yet in a position to confirm the latest report, but officials noted that Russia has hamstrung UN efforts to probe previous allegations of regime atrocities.

"Civilians are being killed and it is not acceptable," Steve Goldstein, US under secretary of state for public diplomacy and public affairs, told reporters in Washington.

Asked whether the United States would raise the issue at the UN Security Council, Goldstein said: "We'll see tomorrow."

"Russia had failed to rid Syria of chemical weapons, and they've been blocking chemical weapons organizations. Enough is enough," he warned.

The United States has urged Russia to compel Assad to take a United Nations-brokered peace process in Geneva and Vienna seriously and come to the table.

But Moscow -- along with Iran and Turkey -- has been running a parallel peace initiative under its own auspices out of Astana and Sochi, and the eight-year-old civil war continues.

In 2013 the previous US administration, under president Barack Obama, balked at striking Syria over its alleged chemical arms use, choosing to work with Moscow on a disarmament plan.

Obama's successor in the White House, President Donald Trump, launched a cruise missile strike against a Syrian airbase in April 2017 in response to an alleged chemical attack.

But US military action in Syria has otherwise been focused on defeating the Islamic State jihadist groups -- and thus-far ineffective diplomatic efforts to end the civil war.

Colin Munro ensured New Zealand continued a stellar home summer on Monday when they thrashed Pakistan by seven wickets with 25 balls to spare in the opening Twenty20 match in Wellington.

Munro was left unbeaten on 49 when a wide by Hasan Ali in the 16th over gave New Zealand victory as they chased down Pakistan's 105 in the clash of the world's top two ranked Twenty20 sides.

It extended New Zealand's winning streak to 13 across all three formats in the past two months including five one-dayers against Pakistan and a series of Tests, ODIs and Twenty20s against the West Indies.

For Tim Southee, the stand-in captain after a late decision to rest Kane Williamson who has a minor injury, everything went according to plan.

"Obviously winning the toss on that wicket and then coming out and taking early wickets was the plan and we were able to do that. We bowled exceptionally well," said Southee who also paid tribute to Munro's role with the bat.

"It was a great knock from Colin. He likes to get on with it and I think he played a mature innings and was able to hammer it home towards the end."

Pakistan captain Sarfraz Ahmed again had to defend a woeful performance by his top order batsmen, which also plagued them in the ODI series, and believed they were well short of a competitive total.

"We're not batting well enough up the order. The new ball was swinging and bouncing, we didn't keep wickets in hand. They bowled very well with the new ball," he said.

"If we had a score of 140-150 it could have been a good match."

After a wobbly start in which Martin Guptill went for two and Glenn Phillips was bowled for three, Munro and Tom Bruce (26) set up the New Zealand victory with a 49-run stand for the third wicket.

After cautiously lifting the score to 34 for two after eight overs, they took 23 off the next 12 balls to reduce the target to under six an over and they coasted from there.

Following Bruce's dismissal, Ross Taylor partnered Munro through to the end with a rapid 22 off 13 deliveries.

Munro's 43-ball innings included three fours and two sixes and he was left a frustrating one-run short of being only the third player behind Brendon McCullum and Chris Gayle to score four consecutive half centuries in Twenty20 cricket.

Pakistan were in immediate trouble after being sent into bat and were four for 22 in the sixth over as Southee led a dismantling of the Pakistan top order.

By the 15th over, Pakistan were seven for 53 and in danger of falling short of their current lowest score of 74 against Australia six years ago, when Babar Khan (41) and Hasan Ali (23) boosted the total with a 30-run partnership.

Southee finished with the best New Zealand figures of three for 13 while Seth Rance took three for 26.

Concerns are growing over an oil slick off China's east coast after an Iranian tanker, the Sanchi, exploded and sank a week ago following a collision at sea.

Here is a look back at the major oil spills around the world in the past five decades:

- Shipwrecks -

- Atlantic Empress and Aegean Captain, 1979: The two Greek-registered tankers collide and catch fire off Tobago in the West Indies, spilling an estimated 287,000 tonnes of crude. Thirty sailors die.

- ABT Summer, 1991: Loaded with 260,000 tonnes of crude, the Liberian-registered tanker explodes some 1,300 kilometres (900 miles) off the coast of Angola. The ship burns for three days before sinking with its cargo.

- Castillo de Bellver, 1983: The Spanish oil tanker runs aground off Saldanha Bay in South Africa, spilling 250,000 tonnes of oil.

- Amoco Cadiz, 1978: 227,000 tonnes of oil wash up on 400 kilometres of French coastline when the Liberian-registered supertanker sinks off Brittany.

- Haven, 1991: The Cypriot oil tanker sinks off Italy's Gulf of Genoa after fires destroy most of its 144,000-tonne cargo. The remainder of the oil forms a slick polluting Italy's Liguria coast and Provence in France.

- The Odyssey, 1988: The British ship carrying 132,000 tonnes of oil sinks with its 27-member crew in the Atlantic, 1,300 kilometres from the Canadian coast.

- Torrey Canyon, 1967: 121,000 tonnes of oil pollute the coast off England and France after the grounding of the Liberian-registered supertanker.

Other oil tanker shipwrecks may have involved less oil but still caused major environmental damage. These include the Exxon Valdez in Alaska in 1989, the Sea Empress off Wales in 1996, the Erika in France in 1999 and the Prestige in Spain 2002.

- Oil rig spills -

- Gulf of Mexico, 1979: Around one million tonnes of oil gush from the Ixtoc-Uno well after an explosion on a rig operated by Mexican state oil company Pemex. Capping the leak takes nine months.

- Gulf War, 1991: Around one million tonnes is estimated to have spilled when Iraqi forces set fire to Kuwaiti oil wells. Hundreds of kilometres of coastline are polluted.

- United States, 2010: The explosion of the Deepwater Horizon oil rig, operated by BP in the Gulf of Mexico, leaves 11 dead and leads to the spillage of more than 600,000 tonnes of oil.

Sources: AFP, France-based accidental water pollution expert group Cedre, International Tanker Owners Pollution Federation Limited (ITOPF)

A Vietnamese former state oil executive who was allegedly kidnapped from Germany was jailed for life on Monday for embezzlement, in the highest-profile corruption trial to target the communist country's business and political elite.

The case -- also involving 21 other officials, including a former party politburo member -- has captivated a country where the affairs of the powerful are normally kept secret and the downfall of senior politicians rarely happens in public.

Vietnam has mirrored China in its massive corruption purge, but critics say the campaign is as much about targeting political foes as it is about tackling graft in one of Southeast Asia's most corrupt nations.

The life sentence for Trinh Xuan Thanh, the former head of PetroVietnam Construction (PVC), capped a dramatic two-week trial -- closed to international media -- that included a tearful apology from the 51-year-old.

Thanh was sentenced to "14 years for mismanagement and life in prison for embezzlement", according to state-run VNExpress news site.

The jury said "no one at PVC dared use money for wrong purposes" without Thanh's direction, the report said.

The embezzlement charges carry a maximum sentence of death but prosecutors recommended life instead.

He faces a separate trial for embezzlement Wednesday that could see him put to death.

Former politburo member Dinh La Thang, who once chaired the board of PetroVietnam, was sentenced to 13 years in prison, while the remaining defendants got punishments ranging between 22 years in jail and a 30-month suspended sentence.

They are accused of causing $5.2 million in losses for the state during an investment by PetroVietnam into a thermal power plant.

Public opinion on the prison terms remained divided on social media Monday, though some were swift to decry the punishments as too light.

"These were sentences for street thieves," wrote Facebook user Huan Pham after the verdict was announced.

- China echoes -

Thanh's case has gripped the Vietnamese public since 2016 when he was spotted driving a flashy Lexus with government licence plates -- prompting corruption rumours about the official, who swiftly fled to Germany.

He was next heard of in August 2017 when German officials said he was plucked from a central Berlin park by Vietnamese security agents, in a Cold-War style episode that Germany described as a "scandalous violation" of its sovereignty.

Hanoi has denied he was kidnapped, insisting he returned voluntarily to Vietnam, where he appeared on state television and confessed to his crimes in a broadcast that some suspect he may have been pressured into.

Germany said after Monday's verdict it was "too early to evaluate the trial" pending further proceedings this week and possible appeals, but "took note" of the fact that he was spared the death penalty, said foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Adebahr.

Thanh will return to court for a fresh trial on Wednesday on embezzlement charges after he was accused of pocketing $620,000 of state funds.

The charges carry the death penalty.

Thanh's German lawyer, Petra Schlagenhauf -- who was denied entry to Vietnam before the start of the trial -- called on Berlin to keep pushing for his release and return to Germany, and said the trial did not conform with the rule of law.

It was the highest-profile corruption case in the one-party state, which has long vowed to tackle graft but rarely targets senior officials.

According to Transparency International, Vietnam ranks 113th out of 176 on its corruption perception index, worse than its Southeast Asian neighbours Thailand and the Philippines.

Scores of bankers, former officials and businessmen have been jailed as part of Vietnam's purge, including a senior banker sentenced to death for fraud last year.

Critics say the corruption purge is fuelled by political infighting and is led by Communist Party chief Nguyen Phu Trong, characterised as a conservative hardliner.

Observers say the campaign is similar to the anti-corruption purge in China, led by President Xi Jinping.

"It's a good way to keep political opponents on their toes," Vietnam expert Jonathan London told AFP, adding it echoes Xi's corruption purge of "real, perceived and potential opponents".

London said Thanh's conviction may be the "most spectacular" but he expects the anti-graft drive to continue.

Former Catalan leader Carles Puigdemont arrived in Copenhagen on Monday, defying a threat by Madrid to issue a warrant for his arrest if he leaves Belgium, where he has been in exile since a failed independence bid.

Danish broadcaster TV2 released an image on its website of Puigdemont being surrounded by reporters after his plane landed in Copenhagen Airport.

A source in his entourage also confirmed his arrival in the Danish capital.

Puigdemont is to take part in a debate on Catalonia at the University of Copenhagen later Monday.

His trip comes a day after Spain's prosecution service said it would "immediately" have a supreme court judge issue a warrant for his arrest if he travels to Denmark, and urge Copenhagen to hand him over.

Puigdemont fled to Belgium in late October after Madrid sacked his cabinet over their breakaway attempt, but is eyeing a return to power after pro-independence parties won an absolute majority in regional elections in December.

Spanish Supreme Court Judge Pablo Llarena had dropped a European arrest warrant for Puigdemont and four of his deputies who fled to Belgium in early December, saying it would complicate the overall probe into the region's leaders.

At home, however, he risks arrest on charges of rebellion, sedition and misuse of public funds.

On Monday, the speaker of the Catalan parliament is due to announce his candidate to become the president of the region.

Puigdemont is the favourite, but wants to govern the region from exile in order to avoid arrest if he returns to Spain.

Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy reiterated Saturday that governing Catalonia from abroad would be "illegal".

The speaker of the Catalan parliament on Monday proposed the region's ousted leader Carles Puigdemont as president of Catalonia, as a Spanish judge refused to re-issue a European warrant for his arrest.

Roger Torrent said Puigdemont's candidacy to once again head Catalonia's regional government is "absolutely legitimate", even though the secessionist leader faces criminal proceedings in Spain over his role in Catalonia's independence drive.

The parliamentary vote to choose a new Catalan leader is now due to take place by the end of January.

In a major blow to the central government in Madrid, separatist parties once again won an absolute majority in the Catalan regional parliament in a snap election in December.

Puigdemont wants to be sworn in from Belgium, where he fled in late October after the Catalan parliament declared unilateral independence, sparking shock waves across an EU already shaken by Britain's vote to leave.

Madrid sacked Puigdemont and his entire government, and it dissolved the parliament following the declaration.

Charged with rebellion, sedition and misuse of public funds, Puigdemont now faces arrest if he returns to Spain over his role in the independence drive.

The government in Madrid has ruled out his being allowed to rule from outside the country and even his separatist allies -- the leftwing ERC party of Puigdemont's former deputy Oriol Junqueras -- are cool in private to his bid to rule from abroad.

Spanish prosecutors on Monday sought to have a European arrest warrant for Puigdemont re-issued as he arrived in Copenhagen in his first trip outside of Belgium since he fled to the country.

But Supreme Court Judge Pablo Llarena turned down the request, arguing Puigdemont had gone to Denmark "to provoke this arrest abroad" as part of a strategy to boost his arguments in favour of being allowed to be sworn in as president of Catalonia again.

Llarena had dropped a European arrest warrant for Puigdemont and four of his deputies who fled to Belgium in early December, saying it would complicate the overall probe into the region's leaders -- but warned they would be arrested if they return.Danish broadcaster TV2 released an image on its website of Puigdemont surrounded by reporters after his plane landed in Copenhagen Airport.

On his Twitter feed, Puigdemont confirmed his arrival in the Danish capital, where he is due to take part in a debate at the University of Copenhagen about the secession crisis in the region later on Monday.His trip is also scheduled to include a visit to the Danish parliament.

The visit might help Puigdemont avoid problems in Belgium, where he has been for three months without a residence permit.

- Governing from abroad 'illegal'? -

Three other separatist lawmakers are already in custody in Spain over their role in Catalonia's separatist push, including Junqueras, his former deputy.

The Catalan parliament's legal experts have said that any presidential contender has to be physically present, but Puigdemont insists he has the legitimate mandate of the people to rule.Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy reiterated Saturday that governing Catalonia from abroad would be "illegal" and has warned Madrid would maintain its direct control over the region and will take the matter to court if Puigdemont sought remote rule.

Madrid's direct rule has proven very unpopular in a region that had enjoyed considerable autonomy before its leaders attempted to break away from Spain.

Catalonia's separatist push has sparked Spain's biggest constitutional crisis since the country returned to democracy following the death of longtime dictator Francisco Franco in 1975 and has deeply worried the country's EU partners.

Indian state governments made a last-ditch attempt Monday to ban a Bollywood film about a mythical Hindu queen which has sparked violent protests by radical groups.

The Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh governments asked India's top court to retract a ruling ordering states to show the film "Padmaavat", which is due to hit screens on Thursday.

The urgent petitions, which the Supreme Court will hear on Tuesday, were lodged a day after Hindu extremists set fire to buses and blocked roads in Gujarat state.

In Rajasthan state, women carrying swords marched in Chittorgarh against the movie. In Noida, near the capital New Delhi, activists burned toll booths on a major highway after a rally.

Protesters claim the film falsely depicts a romance between 14th century Hindu queen Padmavati and Muslim ruler Alauddin Khilji. The producers deny this and insist the movie portrays her respectfully.

The Supreme Court on Thursday overturned a ban on the release of the film which had been imposed by several states, including Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh, saying it violated creative freedoms.

The states have asked the court instead to rule that individual state governments should be allowed to block the release on law and order grounds.

A caste-based group called the Rajput Karni Sena, which has been leading the violent protests, has threatened to attack cinemas showing the film, including with swords.

Its leaders claim that hundreds of women are ready to perform a mass self-immolation if the movie showing goes ahead.

In January last year members attacked the film's director Sanjay Leela Bhansali and vandalised the set during filming in Rajasthan.

The leader of the group also offered 50 million rupees ($769,000) to anyone who "beheaded" lead actress Deepika Padukone or Bhansali.

Protesters attacked another set near Mumbai in March, burning costumes and other props.

The movie stars Shahid Kapoor as Maharawal Ratan Singh, the husband of Padmavati, and Ranveer Singh as Khilji who leads an invasion to try to capture the queen.

Protesters maintain it distorts history, even though experts say the queen is a mythical character.

Earlier this month the film censor board cleared "Padmaavat" for release subject to five changes.

The repatriation of hundreds of thousands of Rohingya Muslims who fled violence in Myanmar will not begin as planned, Bangladesh said Monday, with authorities admitting "a lot of preparation" was still needed.

Bangladesh had been due to start the huge process on January 23, after agreeing a two-year timeframe with Myanmar.

But Bangladesh's Refugee Relief and Repatriation Commissioner Mohammad Abul Kalam announced Monday there was much more work to be done.

"We have not made the preparations required to send back people from tomorrow. A lot of preparation is still needed," Kalam told AFP.

Since August last year around 688,000 Muslim Rohingya have escaped over the border into Bangladesh in the wake of a military-led campaign in Rakhine state that the UN says amounted to "ethnic cleansing".

They poured into ill-equipped and overcrowded camps, bringing with them harrowing tales of rape, murder and torture at the hands of Myanmar's feared army or Buddhist mobs.

After a global outcry, which included loud criticism of Myanmar's civilian leader Aung San Suu Kyi, the two countries agreed earlier this month that the refugees would be returned to Myanmar in a process they said would take around two years.

Rights groups and the UN have said any repatriation must be voluntary. There are reports that many Rohingya settlements have been burned to the ground.

Bangladesh has sought to assure the international community that only those wishing to go back to their homelands in Rakhine would be sent back and that the process would involve the UN's refugee agency.

But on Monday refugee chief Kalam said transit centres still needed to be built, and work remained to be done on the "rigorous process" of approving lists of those entitled -- and willing -- to return to Myanmar.

"Without completing this, we cannot send these people back all of a sudden. This work is ongoing," he said.

He gave no revised start date but said two sites near the border had been identified for possible transit sites.

Bangladesh was "very keen" for the process to begin as soon as possible, he said, but added much work was outstanding on Myanmar's side including housing reconstruction and safety arrangements.

"Neither side is ready for the real movement to begin now," Kalam said.

- Angry protests -

The repatriation deal covers more than 750,000 refugees who have fled since October 2016, but does not include the estimated 200,000 Rohingya who were living in Bangladesh prior to that, driven out by previous rounds of communal violence and military operations.

Refugees have protested at the prospect of return, with many saying they fear the campaign of atrocities is not over in Rakhine.

Local authorities in Cox's Bazar in southeast Bangladesh on Monday stopped hundreds of protesters from marching on one large camp, with an organiser detained by the Bangladesh army, Rohingya leaders told AFP.

In recent days refugees have gathered by the hundreds chanting slogans and holding banners, demanding citizenship and guarantees of security before they return to Rakhine.

"It doesn't matter if it starts tomorrow, in three months or a year later," said 35-year-old Rohingya refugee Nurulla Amin upon learning that repatriation had been delayed.

"What matters is our rights, our demands and if they are actually met."

Five senior Rohingya leaders met UN special rapporteur Yanghee Lee in the Cox's Bazar district late Sunday and handed her a list of demands before repatriation would be considered.

"We do not want to go back home because we have not got our rights," community leader Abdur Rahim, who met Lee during her tour of the camps, told AFP.

Tensions have been rising in the overcrowded camps as the deadline for repatriation loomed.

Two Rohingya representatives have been murdered in the past three days, police said Monday, including one described by local media and community leaders as pro-repatriation.

Rohingya militants at the weekend said the repatriation plan would trap the Muslim minority in long-term camps while their ancestral lands are seized.

Most refugees live in squalid camps in Cox's Bazar but an estimated 6,500 are stranded in a so-called no man's land between Bangladesh and Myanmar.

Kalam said Myanmar could take back these refugees "as a token of their seriousness" about the agreement, as they were not on Bangladeshi soil and therefore not part of the official repatriation.

Turkey Monday intensified its offensive against Kurdish militia targets in Syria as President Recep Tayyip Erdogan vowed there would be no stepping back in a campaign that has stoked concern among Ankara's allies and neighbors.

The Turkish military on Saturday launched operation "Olive Branch," its second major incursion into Syrian territory during the seven-year civil war.

The operation, where Turkish war planes and artillery are backing a major ground incursion launched with Ankara-backed Syrian rebels and Turkish tanks, aims to oust the People's Protection Units (YPG) militia from its enclave of Afrin.

Turkey considers the YPG to be a terror group and the Syrian offshoot of the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) which has waged a bloody three-decade insurgency against the Turkish state.

"We are determined. Afrin will be sorted out. We will take no step back," Erdogan said in a televised speech in Ankara, adding that Russia had given its backing.

But the operation is hugely sensitive as Washington relied on the YPG to oust Daesh (ISIS) from their Syrian strongholds and the Kurdish militia now holds much of Syria's north.

France has called for a U.N. Security Council meeting Monday to discuss concerns over flashpoint areas in Syria including the Turkish offensive.

State-run news agency Anadolu said ground forces had already taken 15 villages and other locations in their advance into Syria. Prime Minister Binali Yildirim said since Saturday 170 targets had been destroyed.

Meanwhile, Turkish artillery fired shells on YPG targets inside Syria and ground troops opened a new front by moving on Afrin from the town of Azaz to the east, state media said.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said a total of 21 civilians - including six children - had been killed in the operation. It said 13 Ankara-backed rebels were killed and 9 Kurdish fighters.

But Ankara has denied inflicting civilian casualties, with Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu accusing the YPG of sending out "nonsense propaganda and baseless lies."

Observatory director Rami Abdel Rahim told AFP in Beirut that the clashes were the fiercest since the start of the offensive. Turkey-backed forces had also taken a key hill in Afrin, both he and Anadolu said.

An AFP correspondent in the Turkish border village of Hassa saw more Turkish tanks heading towards Syria, enthusiastically cheered by locals.

In a sign of the risks to Turkey, rockets fired from Syria on the border town of Reyhanli on Sunday killed one Syrian refugee. One more person was killed in a similar attack Monday on the village of Kirikhan.

Yildirim said that the Turkish army had suffered no losses.

The Syrian Democratic Forces, an umbrella group dominated by the YPG, said in a statement that the operation amounted to "clear support" for Daesh.

The operation is Turkey's second major incursion into Syria during the seven-year civil war after the August 2016-March 2017 Euphrates Shield campaign in an area to the east of Afrin, against both the YPG and Daesh.

Erdogan has warned that those protesting against the operation will have to pay a "heavy price" and Turkish police detained 24 people on suspicion of disseminating "terror propaganda" against the operation on social media.

But as well as a complex military task, Turkey has to wage a sensitive diplomatic campaign to avoid alienating allies and provoking foes.

Western capitals are particularly concerned that the campaign against the YPG will take the focus away from eliminating Daesh after a string of successes in recent months.

U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said Monday he was "concerned" about the offensive, saying the United States was in Syria with the aim of defeating the extremists.

But Erdogan expressed impatience with U.S. demands to set a clear timetable, saying the campaign would be over "when the target is achieved."

"How long have you been in Afghanistan? Is that over in Iraq?" he said, referring to the current U.S. military presence in those countries which began with 2001 and 2003 invasions.

Erdogan has previously indicated that once control is imposed onto Afrin, Turkey wants to head west to defeat the YPG in the town of Manbij to the west.

Meanwhile Russia and Iran - who have a military presence in Syria and are working with Turkey on a peace process - have also expressed concern.

Erdogan insisted Turkey had discussed the operation in advance with Russia, and Moscow was in "agreement."

A crucial factor will be if the operation affects a Syrian peace conference to be held in the Russian resort of Sochi in late January.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Monday that Kurdish representatives would be invited, without specifying who, and accused the U.S. of encouraging separatism among Syrian Kurds.

Turkey gave Washington advance warning before launching an operation against US-allied Syrian Kurdish forces, and Ankara has "legitimate" security concerns in the area, Defense Secretary Jim Mattis said Sunday.

"Turkey was candid. They warned us before they launched the aircraft they were going to do it in consultation with us, and we are working now on the way ahead through the ministry of foreign affairs," Mattis told reporters aboard his aircraft at the start of a trip to Asia.

Turkey "is the only NATO country with an active insurgency inside its borders, and Turkey has legitimate security concerns," Mattis said, referring to the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), which has been engaged in a separatist struggle against Ankara since 1984.

Turkey launched "Operation Olive Branch," an offensive by Ankara's troops and allied Syrian rebels against the Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG) in the town of Afrin.

The YPG has been a key US ally in the war against the Islamic State group, helping to drive the group's jihadist fighters from swaths of Syrian territory, including its stronghold Raqa.

But Ankara considers YPG fighters to be "terrorists" linked to the PKK.

- Call for 'restraint' -

Turkey on Sunday ruled out the risk of an inadvertent clash with American forces in its operation in Syria, saying there were no US troops in the area where the campaign was taking place.

"US officials declared that there has been no American military or American soldiers in the region," Turkish Deputy Prime Minister Bekir Bozdag told reporters in Istanbul.

The US State Department, while also referring to the "legitimate security concerns of Turkey," issued a call for Ankara to proceed carefully.

"We urge Turkey to exercise restraint and ensure that its military operations remain limited in scope and duration and scrupulous to avoid civilian casualties," State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert said in a statement.

"We call on all parties to remain focused on the central goal of defeating" IS, Nauert said.

A Britain-based monitoring group and a YPG spokesman both said that Turkish air raids on Sunday killed eight civilians in northern Syria.

A day earlier, the YPG's Birusk Hasakeh told AFP that a Turkish bombardment had killed 10 people, including seven civilians.

Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said Sunday that claims of civilian casualties from the offensive were untrue.

Russia said Monday it has invited Kurds to take part in an upcoming Syrian peace congress in Sochi despite a Turkish offensive against Kurdish militia in northern Syria."Kurdish representatives have been included on the list of Syrians invited to participate in the Syrian National Dialogue Congress which will take place in Sochi next week," Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said.

Together with regime backer Iran and rebel supporter Turkey, Russia -- a key backer of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad -- wants to convene a peace conference with the aim of agreeing a new constitution for post-war Syria.

The peace talks have been planned for January 29 and 30.

Moscow initially hoped to convene peace talks in Sochi last November but those efforts collapsed following a lack of agreement among co-sponsors.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan at the time to fumed at the prospect of inviting to the conference the Syrian Kurdish group the PYD and its armed wing, the Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG).

Without referring to Kurdish militia by name, Erdogan said in November: "We cannot consider a terrorist gang with blood on their hands a legitimate actor."

For three years, jihadists made life in Iraq's Mosul impossible. Now, six months after their defeat, even their corpses are polluting everyone's existence as no one wants to move them.

The rare few who dare to venture into Mosul's historic centre do so with their nose and mouth firmly covered with masks or scarves to keep out the stench.

Amid the rubble-strewn alleys overlooking the River Tigris, unburied human remains are rotting.

They are the bodies of Islamic State group jihadists, residents and the civil defence say, pointing to their Afghan robes, long beards, and sometimes even suicide belts.

Here and there, on a wall or on a road sign, are scribbled the words "Cemetery for the people of Daesh," using an Arabic acronym for IS.

The jihadists seized second city Mosul in July 2014, imposing their rigid interpretation of Islam on inhabitants and dispensing brutal punishments for those who did not obey.

Iraqi forces declared victory against IS in the city in July 2017, after months of fighting that killed hundreds of civilians and caused tens of thousands to flee.

But six months on, the putrefying bodies of jihadists killed in the battle are preventing some residents from returning home.

Othman Ahmad, an unemployed 35-year-old, said he would not go back to living in the Old City with his wife and two children as long as the corpses remained.

- 'Awful smell' -

"We're scared with all these bodies and this awful smell," he told AFP, in an alley not far from his former home, now barely recognisable after the destruction.

Not far off, Abu Shaker, 60, said he was terrified the bodies might lead to "germs and epidemics".

But civil defence teams say it is not their job to remove the corpses of IS fighters.

Their mission, which ended on January 10, was to extract the bodies of civilians from the rubble so their families could bury them.

For months on end, during and after the battle, they retrieved the remains of men, women and children and carried them away in black body bags.

There is no official death toll for civilians killed in the battle for Mosul, but the United Nations and a monitoring group have said hundreds were killed.

Extracting the bodies was gruelling work, as rescue teams could not enter the Old City's narrow alleyways with their vehicles or heavy equipment.

"To dig, we'd use light tools and our bare hands, so getting bodies out took a lot of effort and time," the civil defence's Lieutenant-Colonel Rabie Ibrahim said.

Whenever they were alerted, his colleagues said, civil defence members dashed out to search the ruins, tackling the mounds of broken concrete that now covers the Old City.

To avoid having to bury unidentified bodies, they only searched in the company of relatives able to identify those they had lost.

- 'Before it rains' -

As for the bodies of Iraqi and foreign jihadists, it is the city council's responsibility.

"We have already brought 450 out of the rubble, but there are hundreds more," city council head of services Abdel Sattar al-Habbu said.

Those bodies have been thrown into mass graves, without any rites.

Removing them is slow, he said, because the jihadists stole and destroyed most of their equipment.

And some bodies still carry undetonated explosives that the security forces did not defuse.

But time is pressing, said Hossam Eddine al-Abar, of the Mosul region's provincial council.

"The bodies have to be moved before it rains and the Tigris rises, taking with it the bodies rotting on its banks," he said.

If the river became contaminated, it would be impossible to treat its water as filtering and purifying stations around the city have been destroyed, either by the jihadists or in the battle to retake the city.

A doctor, who asked to remain anonymous, said no case of contaminated water had been reported so far.

But the rotting bodies "pollute the air and water and could soon cause diseases", he said.

Ahmad Ibrahim, a gastroenterologist, said the river's entire ecosystem could soon be contaminated if nothing was done.

"These diseases can develop now, or they can appear in coming years," he said.

Palestinian leader Mahmud Abbas will seek EU support in Brussels on Monday amid bitter acrimony with the United States, but he looks unlikely to get much in the way of concrete commitments.

In an interview with AFP on Sunday in Brussels, Palestinian foreign minister Riad al-Malki said Abbas would urge the European Union to officially recognise the state of Palestine "as a way to respond" to US President Donald Trump's declaration of Jerusalem as the Israeli capital.

Abbas, who last week denounced Trump's peace efforts as the "slap of the century", will also "reiterate his commitment to the peace process" in the Middle East, Malki said.

The 82-year-old Abbas will meet EU diplomatic chief Federica Mogherini and the bloc's 28 foreign ministers on the sidelines of their monthly meeting, after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu made a similar trip last month.

"Since Trump's decision has altered the rules of the game, he (Abbas) expects the European foreign ministers to come forward and collectively recognise the state of Palestine as a way to respond back to Trump's decision," Malki said.

- No recognition likely -

But diplomats and officials in Brussels say recognition for Palestine is not on the cards on Monday -- the EU leaves recognition in the hands of individual members -- and the best Abbas can hope for is progress towards an "association agreement" with the bloc.Some countries, notably France, are understood to be keen to give Abbas something concrete to take away, but others are more cautious.

Spanish Foreign Minister Alfonso Dastis said he was open to starting discussions on a possible agreement, but warned Abbas must tone down his rhetoric, following his outburst against the US.

"I think what we must ask him to do is to moderate his response to decisions that we have ourselves criticised," Dastis told reporters as he arrived for the meeting.

Malki told AFP that while the Palestinian Authority was "very serious" about an association agreement, they also expected to be formally recognised as a state.

Abbas meanwhile will urge the EU to take on a bigger role in trying to move peace efforts forward, Malki said, calling for a new "multilateral" framework.

Mogherini said Monday's meeting would look at "ways in which the EU can support the restart of the process".

Abbas's mission to Brussels comes as US Vice President Mike Pence visits Israel during a tour of the Middle East with Arab anger still smouldering over Washington's declaration on Jerusalem.

"It is an important coincidence. It will give a picture of a balance between the European Union and the United States in the area. That is an important image for Abu Mazen," analyst Jihad Harb, of the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research, told AFP, using a common moniker for Abbas.

The Palestinian leadership has said it will not accept the Trump administration as a mediator in peace talks with Israel and wants an internationally-led process.

"The Palestinians are looking to move away from a US-led process to a more a multilateral process and there does appear to be a greater willingness on the EU side to look at such a process," said Hugh Lovatt, Israel Palestine Project Coordinator at the European Council on Foreign Relations.

- Iran talk -

Trump's son-in-law and senior adviser Jared Kushner has been working for months with a small team to develop a new US proposal to revive peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians, but no details or even news of progress have emerged.

A senior EU official said Friday the bloc "believes a plan is in the making" but is still in the dark about "the content of this plan or the parameters".

The meeting will be the first gathering of EU foreign ministers since Trump set a 120-day deadline on January 13 for fixing "disastrous flaws" in the 2015 deal to curb Iran's nuclear programme in return for sanctions relief.

Mogherini, who has been staunch in her defence of the landmark accord, will brief the meeting on the Iran situation but the three EU signatories to the deal -- France, Britain and Germany -- have not yet said how they plan to respond to Trump's ultimatum.

The Philippines said Monday it would deport an elderly Iraqi man described as a scientist for Hamas and accused of helping the Palestinian militant group lob missiles at Israel.

Iraq tipped off the Philippines about the presence of Taja Mohammad Al Jabori, who was arrested on Sunday, national police chief Ronald Dela Rosa told reporters.

However, the arrest was due to visa problems rather than any evidence of militant activity, the police chief emphasised.

"He's an illegal alien, his visa is expired so he has to be deported right away," Dela Rosa said.

"He admitted being a member of Hamas. He's a chemist and he has been responsible for improving the rocket technology of Hamas in firing their missiles from their area towards the other side, for Israel."

The suspect will be deported to Iraq.

The police chief said it was the first time Philippine authorities had dealt with an alleged member of Hamas, a group labelled a terrorist organisation by the United States, the European Union and Israel.

The Islamist movement does not recognise Israel, with which it has fought three wars, and has vied with the rival Fatah movement for control of Palestinian territory.

The handcuffed detainee did not speak while being made to stand beside the Philippine police chief at a press conference.

Dela Rosa said it was unclear at present why the alleged Hamas chemist had travelled to the Philippines.

Police said he arrived last year as Philippine troops battled militants loyal to the Islamic State group for control of the southern city of Marawi.

Al Jabori had however mostly stayed in Manila and nearby provinces and told police he had no intention of committing any terror act in the Philippines, the police chief said.

Jordan said on Thursday that Israel had formally apologized for the deaths of two of its citizens killed by an Israeli security guard last July in an incident that soured ties and led to the closure of the Israeli embassy in Amman, state media said.

Government spokesman Mohammad al Momani was quoted by state news agency Petra as saying the Israeli foreign ministry had sent a memorandum expressing "deep regrets and apologies" over the incident at the embassy and pledging to take legal action in the case.

Jordan had said it would not allow Israel to reopen its embassy in Amman until it launched legal proceedings against the security guard.

The Israeli prime minister's office said on Thursday that the embassy in Amman would resume full operations immediately.The handling of the shooting had tested ties between Israel and Jordan, one of only two Arab states that has a peace treaty with Israel. The two have a long history of close security ties.

The embassy was closed shortly after Israel hastily repatriated the guard under diplomatic immunity to prevent Jordanian authorities interrogating him and taking any legal action against him. The Israeli ambassador and embassy staff were pulled out.

Jordan maintained that even if the guard had diplomatic immunity that did not mean he could not be punished.Israel has now pledged to "implement and follow up legal measures" in the case and also take action in the shooting of an unarmed Jordanian judge by an Israeli soldier in an incident in 2014, Momani said.

Israel would pay compensation to the three families, he said.

Israel said at the time the armed guard opened fire after being attacked and lightly wounded by the workman, who was delivering furniture at his home within the embassy compound, and acted in self-defence in what Israeli officials called a "terrorist attack".

Israel then said it was highly unlikely it would prosecute the security guard.

Jordanian officials have treated the shooting as a criminal case and say the two unarmed Jordanians - the other was a bystander - were killed in cold blood by the armed guard.

The government statement said the Israeli government had met all of Jordan's demands for the return of the ambassador and the reopening of the embassy.Many Jordanians, in a country where the peace treaty with Israel is unpopular and pro-Palestinian sentiment widespread, were outraged that the guard was allowed to leave and staged protests calling on the authorities to scrap the 1994 peace treaty.

A televised welcome home for the guard and a hero's embrace from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had enraged King Abdullah. In a rare outburst, he accused Netanyahu of using the incident as a "political show" saying it was "provocative on all fronts".

Jordan said on Thursday that Israel had formally apologized for the deaths of two of its citizens killed by an Israeli security guard last July in an incident that soured ties and led to the closure of the Israeli embassy in Amman, state media said.

Government spokesman Mohammad al Momani was quoted by state news agency Petra as saying the Israeli foreign ministry had sent a memorandum expressing "deep regrets and apologies" over the incident at the embassy and pledging to take legal action in the case.

Jordan had said it would not allow Israel to reopen its embassy in Amman until it launched legal proceedings against the security guard.

The Israeli prime minister's office said on Thursday that the embassy in Amman would resume full operations immediately.The handling of the shooting had tested ties between Israel and Jordan, one of only two Arab states that has a peace treaty with Israel. The two have a long history of close security ties.

The embassy was closed shortly after Israel hastily repatriated the guard under diplomatic immunity to prevent Jordanian authorities interrogating him and taking any legal action against him. The Israeli ambassador and embassy staff were pulled out.

Jordan maintained that even if the guard had diplomatic immunity that did not mean he could not be punished.Israel has now pledged to "implement and follow up legal measures" in the case and also take action in the shooting of an unarmed Jordanian judge by an Israeli soldier in an incident in 2014, Momani said.

Israel would pay compensation to the three families, he said.

Israel said at the time the armed guard opened fire after being attacked and lightly wounded by the workman, who was delivering furniture at his home within the embassy compound, and acted in self-defence in what Israeli officials called a "terrorist attack".

Israel then said it was highly unlikely it would prosecute the security guard.

Jordanian officials have treated the shooting as a criminal case and say the two unarmed Jordanians - the other was a bystander - were killed in cold blood by the armed guard.

The government statement said the Israeli government had met all of Jordan's demands for the return of the ambassador and the reopening of the embassy.Many Jordanians, in a country where the peace treaty with Israel is unpopular and pro-Palestinian sentiment widespread, were outraged that the guard was allowed to leave and staged protests calling on the authorities to scrap the 1994 peace treaty.

A televised welcome home for the guard and a hero's embrace from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had enraged King Abdullah. In a rare outburst, he accused Netanyahu of using the incident as a "political show" saying it was "provocative on all fronts".

The UAE on Monday said it will set up an independent national human rights committee, on the basis of the internationally-accepted Paris Principles, and that a comprehensive national human rights plan will be developed.

The announcements were made in a report submitted to the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva as part of the Universal Periodic Review process.

The report also presented, in detail, actions taken to promote human rights in the country since the adoption by the Council of the second Universal Periodic Review on the UAE in 2013, including legislation and steps taken across a wide range of topics, including human trafficking, labour rights and the empowerment of women.

The report, which was presented by Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Dr Anwar Gargash, pledged that the government would take a number of voluntary future steps to continue the process of enhancing the protection of human rights in the country.

Among these will be the establishment of an independent national human rights commission on the basis of the Paris Principles, the formulation of a comprehensive national human rights plan that is updated in the light of new developments and is in line with local laws and the country's international obligations and the promulgation of a federal law on domestic violence. Institutional and legislative measures and mechanisms will be adopted to provide greater protection for domestic workers and to strengthen their access to effective arbitration mechanisms.

Special attention will be focused, the report said, on strengthening the role of specialised national mechanisms in the sphere of the protection of human rights, strengthening existing laws and legislation to keep up with best global practices and creating and training a team of specialised human rights officers. Also singled out in the report was the need to disseminate a human rights culture to the greatest extent possible, taking steps to entrench that culture in the professional world and in academia.

"The UAE underscores that it will continue its efforts to promote and protect human rights in line with its national legislation and laws and its international obligations," the report said. "The State is determined to move forward by building on achievements made in the field of human rights and to continue to make a positive and active contribution to support best global practices in that area."

The UAE is "determined to move forward with its efforts to add to the outstanding achievements that it has scored in promoting and protecting human rights and to contribute to and engage positively in international activities in this domain", the report said.

The UAE was re-elected to membership of the UN Human Rights Council in 2015.

'Human rights crucial for stability'
Addressing the UN Human Rights Council on Monday, Dr Anwar Gargash, the Minister of State for Foreign Affairs, said UAE is committed to advancing human rights not just because it is a moral imperative, but also because it is a critical factor for the country's own stability.

He was introducing the UAE's report for the third Universal Periodic Review (UPR) process at the session. The reforms made since the last UPR, he said, "place the UAE at the forefront of regional efforts to both protect workers' rights and combat human trafficking."

Describing the UPR as "an immensely helpful mechanism for assessing how we can continue to consolidate our progress in advancing our human rights laws and practices," he added that "we take pride in the progress we have made since our last review, to promote and protect human rights in the UAE." Dr Gargash said.

He added: "The politics of division, based on ethnicity, religion, or even gender, has no place in the UAE". This approach, Dr Gargash said, was "the vision and the legacy of our founding president, Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan."

Adding that the UAE is "In a region that is beset with conflict, sectarianism and extremist ideas that seek to take societies backwards rather than forwards," it is necessary "to work hard every day to protect and promote this legacy."

The process of working to advance human rights in the UAE is not simply a matter of its security and stability, he suggested.

That commitment to the advancing of human rights, also meant that "the UAE can also contribute to the stability of the wider region, by sending a message of hope and tolerance and opportunity that transcends our national borders", Dr Gargash said.

As many as 135 local and federal search, rescue and national operations were carried out by the air wing section of Ras Al Khaimah Police in 2017.

Wing Commander Saeed Rashid Al Yamahi, head of the air wing section, said these included 21 search and rescue missions.

"Added to this were 114 participations in national occasions as well as two initiatives for bringing happiness to the orphans, training sessions, and airlifting of patients."

Al Yamahi urged all mountain-goers, tourists and workers to be more cautious at these areas and take all precautionary measures for their safety.

"All members in the team are not only provided with the latest search and rescue equipment but also go through regular training as well to be alert for missions round-the-clock." 

"What makes our job more difficult when looking for a missing person here is the insufficient or unclear information, the rough, rocky, and sloppy mountainous areas which are hard to get to, apart from the unstable weather conditions, mainly the atmospheric pressures, funnel clouds, and heavy showers. 

"All tourists and climbers need to carry special equipment and wear protective clothing, and be accompanied at all times by a qualified trainer who can react in a professional manner during emergencies."

Trekkers and climbers should also learn the basics of rock climbing on an indoor wall first, he added. "Climbers need to inform the authorities about their activities, whereabouts and their numbers. They should also consult climbing websites to get up-to-date information on local climbing sites."

Trekkers are advised to bring a means of communication, such as a mobile or satellite phone, he said. "A whistle could also be useful to attract attention, and take food items on their hike."

Seven people sustained minor to moderate injuries in four separate traffic accidents that took place during the weekend in Dubai.

Four people received minor injuries in a collision between three cars on the Sheikh Zayed Road at 7:00pm on Saturday, said Colonel Juma Salim bin Suwaidan, director-general of the traffic department of the Dubai Police. The vehicles were going in the direction of the tunnel of the World Trade Center to ??Garhoud. Apart from injuring the victims, the smash-up also caused damages to their vehicles.

The second accident occurred when a Mitsubishi vehicle rammed into the concrete barrier dividing the two streets on Al Khail Road before the Oasis exit towards Abu Dhabi, at 11am on Saturday. The driver was moderately injured and taken to the hospital for medical treatment, the colonel said.

In the third mishap, two vehicles collided in the morning the same day on Al Khail Road due to tailgating, leaving one person with moderate injuries. The vehicles were headed towards Sharjah.

On Friday at 11:25pm, a motorcycle and a light vehicle were involved in an accident on a street under construction in ??Lahab. The collision was caused by a group of cyclists, which was passing by. The biker lost control and hit the light vehicle, leaving him injured.

Seven people sustained minor to moderate injuries in four separate traffic accidents that took place during the weekend in Dubai.

Four people received minor injuries in a collision between three cars on the Sheikh Zayed Road at 7:00pm on Saturday, said Colonel Juma Salim bin Suwaidan, director-general of the traffic department of the Dubai Police. The vehicles were going in the direction of the tunnel of the World Trade Center to ??Garhoud. Apart from injuring the victims, the smash-up also caused damages to their vehicles.

The second accident occurred when a Mitsubishi vehicle rammed into the concrete barrier dividing the two streets on Al Khail Road before the Oasis exit towards Abu Dhabi, at 11am on Saturday. The driver was moderately injured and taken to the hospital for medical treatment, the colonel said.

In the third mishap, two vehicles collided in the morning the same day on Al Khail Road due to tailgating, leaving one person with moderate injuries. The vehicles were headed towards Sharjah.

On Friday at 11:25pm, a motorcycle and a light vehicle were involved in an accident on a street under construction in ??Lahab. The collision was caused by a group of cyclists, which was passing by. The biker lost control and hit the light vehicle, leaving him injured.

Seven people sustained minor to moderate injuries in four separate traffic accidents that took place during the weekend in Dubai.

Four people received minor injuries in a collision between three cars on the Sheikh Zayed Road at 7:00pm on Saturday, said Colonel Juma Salim bin Suwaidan, director-general of the traffic department of the Dubai Police. The vehicles were going in the direction of the tunnel of the World Trade Center to ??Garhoud. Apart from injuring the victims, the smash-up also caused damages to their vehicles.

The second accident occurred when a Mitsubishi vehicle rammed into the concrete barrier dividing the two streets on Al Khail Road before the Oasis exit towards Abu Dhabi, at 11am on Saturday. The driver was moderately injured and taken to the hospital for medical treatment, the colonel said.

In the third mishap, two vehicles collided in the morning the same day on Al Khail Road due to tailgating, leaving one person with moderate injuries. The vehicles were headed towards Sharjah.

On Friday at 11:25pm, a motorcycle and a light vehicle were involved in an accident on a street under construction in ??Lahab. The collision was caused by a group of cyclists, which was passing by. The biker lost control and hit the light vehicle, leaving him injured.

A massive fire broke out in a heavy truck in the old industrial area of Umm Al Quwain.  

Col Khamis Ibrahim, deputy director of the UAQ civil defence department said that the vehicle suddenly caught fire for no clear reason.  

Having been alerted about the blaze around 3pm, the central operations room of the UAQ Police dispatched traffic police, ambulances, paramedics and rescue teams to the site in a record time. 

The civil defence firefighters managed to put out the fire, and no human casualties were reported in the fire which started on the front side and spread to the entire vehicle, he said. 

"The well-trained firefighters managed to put out the flames using water and foam, and cooled down the car so that the fire does not start again." 

"All drivers need to do regular maintenance service, particularly in summer due to the scorching temperature, to control any possible fuel or oil leaks which are mostly blamed for such fires." 

Investigations are on to identify the reasons behind the fire, he stated. "The fire case has been referred to the legal authorities concerned for legal action." 

Some days back a massive fire broke out in a four-wheel-drive car here at the Azbah area in the emirate of Umm Al Quwain apparently due to sweltering temperatures. 

The official record shows that seven vehicles caught fire at different areas of the northern emirate owning mostly to high temperature.  

"These included different types of vehicles, spanning four-wheel-drive cars, trucks, trailers, and saloon cars." 

A Pakistani man, who was convicted of strangling an 11-year-old boy to death after raping him at the rooftop of their Abu Dhabi building, has challenged his execution sentence. While denying all the charges, he has contended that he was being wrongly convicted.

The 33-year-old man was sentenced to death last November by the Abu Dhabi Criminal Court of First Instance after he was found guilty of rape, murder and a slew of other charges. The court also ordered the killer to pay Dh200,000 in blood money to the child's family.

The man has, however, appealed the ruling in the Abu Dhabi Appeal Court.

The Pakistani appeared in court for his first hearing without a lawyer and the court ordered him to appoint one, who will be paid by the state.

(The law says all defendants on trial for capital offences and those who may face a death penalty or life in prison, should be represented by a defence lawyer for a fair hearing.)

The child's father Dr Majed Janjua, who attended the first hearing of the case at the appeal court, insisted on the death penalty. "I would only be satisfied by a death penalty for the killer of my child and not anything else," the father said at the court.

He said the murderer's family had tried to speak with him and his family about pardoning the culprit after the Court of First Instance handed him a death sentence.

The trial was adjourned until February 13.

On June 1, 2017, the Pakistani boy - identified as Azan Majid - was found missing, after he went to a nearby mosque to pray. His body was found the next day on the rooftop of the building on Muroor Road, where he was staying with his father and stepmother.

The court records stated that the boy was sexually abused and strangled to death with a rope by the Pakistani national, who is also related to the child.

The police revealed that the man cross-dressed to carry out the attacks on the child, after luring the boy into going with him to the rooftop of the building.

The Abu Dhabi Public Prosecution had charged the Pakistani with premeditated murder, raping the child, cross-dressing and driving a car without a number plate

The Abu Dhabi Criminal Court of First Instance found the Pakistani guilty on all counts and he was handed the death penalty.

The sleepy seaside village of Rol Dhadna, a few miles ahead of the Dibba beach in Fujairah, was left reeling in shock after the sudden and tragic deaths of seven children from the Al Saridi family.

"Nothing of great consequence ever happens in this village. This tragic and traumatic incident has shocked us all," Sulaiman T, an employee of Al Husna Supermarket in Fujairah, told Khaleej Times.

A tragic house fire in the early hours of Monday morning claimed the lives of the seven children, aged 5 to 13.

Musfata, a grocery delivery boy, said: "The kids used to keep coming to our shops for sweets and other items. I heard the police and fire brigade sirens when I was returning from the Fajr prayer. I realised that there was a fire, but nothing really prepared me for what I saw and heard after."

Another shopkeeper at Al Husna Supermarket said the sounds of laughing children would echo through the narrow streets leading up to the tight cluster of houses where the incident took place. Yesterday, however, an eerie silence filled the narrow roads leading up to their home.

"A lot of kids in this locality come to play in the area ... You can see them throughout the day. The children from Al Saridi family would play, too. I just cannot believe that we won't see them again."

Several hundred family members, relatives, friends and members of the public from across the UAE visited the home to pay their respects. "Nothing this terrible has ever happened in this village," said Nazir S, a laundry service provider in the area.

It is said that a short circuit caused the fire and the kids' mother made a distress call at 5:40am, saying that there was a fire in her home and her children were stuck inside.

Abdullah Saeed Al Saridi, a cousin of the children's mother, said: "She had just returned from Thailand after a medical treatment and woke up late at night for medications. She immediately alerted the family, but the smoke was so bad ... no one could enter to save the children."

The children's grandfather, Mohammed Saeed Al Sairidi, could be seen taking condolences from relatives and well-wishers, unable to really speak to anyone. Abdullah added: "The family has already seen too much loss. I am not sure how we can recover from this."

After the funeral proceedings on Monday afternoon, Khaleej Times took a closer look at the aftermath of the fire. The fire had completely burnt down most of the rooms in the villa and the entire area had the faint smell of burning debris.

"Nothing was left behind ... this fire took everything we had. We will never be the same again," said another uncle, who was found squatting outside the house, staring dejectedly into the ground, as the call for Asr prayers echoed through the area, shattering the eerie silence. 

Following the tragic house fire that killed seven children, His Highness Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice-President and Prime Minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai, has directed the UAE Civil Defence to immediately instal fire alarm systems in every citizen's home. The alarm systems will be installed for free at the homes of those who can't afford it.

The systems will link all Emirati homes to the civil defence, the Dubai Ruler tweeted.

In an emotional tweet, Sheikh Mohammed said citizens are the most valuable treasure of the UAE. "They are the life of our nation. The safety and security of Emiratis is a priority."

He also took the names of each of the deceased children and prayed for their souls. "We were shocked today to hear that seven of our children died in the fire incident. We express our deep condolences to their family and the people of the UAE for losing Shooq, Khalifa, Ahmad, Ali, Sheikha, Sara and Suaiya, children of Saeed Al Suraidi. We belong to God, and to God we return, we pray to God to grant them abode in paradise," Sheikh Mohammed tweeted.

His Highness Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi and Deputy Supreme Commander of the UAE Armed Forces, also sent heartfelt condolences to the family. He tweeted: "With hearts that believe in God's destiny, and with great sorrow, we sadly received the news of the seven children's death in the suffocation incident, in Fujairah.

"We express deep condolences to their family and pray to God to shower His blessings on them, and grant their family forbearance and consolation."

Not abiding by the lane discipline led to the death of two people and five others sustained minor to moderate injuries in a traffic accident which took place on the Emirates road, the Dubai Police said.

The accident took place between a minibus and a heavy truck.

Brigadier Saeed Hamad bin Sulaiman director of Al Rashidiya Police Station said that the accident had been caused due to negligence, over speeding and not leaving enough space in between the vehicles.

The minibus driver hit the truck from behind which caused severe damage to his vehicle. 

The minibus driver lost control over his vehicle and hit the heavy truck which was moving in the correct lane.

The police and ambulance reached the site and rushed the injured to Rashid Hospital for medical treatment and dead bodies of the deceased were taken to the forensic department 

His Highness Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi and Deputy Supreme Commander of the UAE Armed Forces, on Monday bid farewell to Mohiuddin, who worked at the office of the Crown Prince for more than 40 years.

On his social media handle, Sheikh Mohamed described Mohiuddin as an "example of a dedicated and diligent worker". 

Parliamentary and provincial elections in Iraq must take place on their scheduled date of May 12, the Federal Supreme Court ruled on Sunday.
The order ends a two-month debate on the issue after Sunni and Kurdish parliamentary blocs asked for voting to be postponed.
They argued that there was a lack of preparation because of the fight to drive Daesh out of towns and cities they had held for three years.
Gaining more time is crucial for Sunni politicians who lost their influence to political and tribal figures who fought Daesh alongside the government under the umbrella of Shiite-dominated paramilitary troops.
Kurds have also been looking to gain more time. Since October, they have lost their control over disputed areas after Baghdad launched a military campaign to drive the Kurdish forces back into their own region.
In their appeal for a postponement, the Sunni and Kurdish blocs relied on the previous electoral law, which said the date of the election should be approved by the parliament.
But the Supreme Court ruled that the constitution was “the supreme law in Iraq and is binding in all its regions, without any exceptions,” so the parliamentary and provincial elections should be held according to the constitutional dates.
“The Federal Court’s decision ended the debate over delaying the elections,” said Salim Al-Joubori, the parliamentary Speaker.
“The government must abide by its commitments to bring the displaced people back to their homes and provide them with the appropriate environment to ensure the participation of all in the upcoming election.”
Rebuilding infrastructure in cities and towns affected by the fighting, and bringing back more than three million displaced people to their homes, are the biggest challenges for the government before the elections.
Sunni politicians argue that the government cannot meet these commitments before the election date.
“This decision … is wrong and against the interest of Iraqis,” Hamid Al-Mutlaq, a senior Sunni politician, told Arab News. “The Supreme Electoral Commission is not ready to held the elections.” Hilding elections in May “does not give a fair or professional impression about the situation in Iraq,” he said.
“There will be a parliamentary session on Monday and we will see what to do.”

Cristiano Ronaldo suffered a nasty cut to the head as Real Madrid moved back into the top four of La Liga after thumping lowly Deportivo La Coruna 7-1 at the Santiago Bernabeu on Sunday.
Ronaldo ended a miserable run of league form with a late double but in the process of heading in his side’s sixth goal, he suffered a kick to the head. Blood was streaming from the side of his head and he borrowed the phone of the club doctor to check the damage. He was substituted straight away and received stitches at the side of the pitch.Ronaldo had only scored four league goals before Sunday’s clash with third-from-bottom Deportivo, but the Portuguese added Real’s fifth and sixth with a smart volley and a diving header as they moved back above Villarreal and into the Champions League places.
Villarreal had temporarily taken fourth place with a 2-1 win over Levante on Saturday after beating Real at the Bernabeu for the first time ever last week.
Gareth Bale and Nacho also bagged braces each side of half-time and Luka Modric curled home a 68th-minute beauty as Real came back from a shock early deficit, a 23rd-minute tap-in from Adrian, to romp home to an emphatic victory and ease the pressure on coach Zinedine Zidane.
"What changed today is the result, that we scored the chances we made, nothing else," said Zidane. “We all needed a game like this. To score seven goals is not done every day. In the end I am happy for that. We know we can play in many different shapes. Today was 4-3-3 with Gareth and Cristiano wide, and Borja. And it worked for us. We can change shape, but the most important was the attitude we showed."

His Majesty King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa received His Royal Highness Prime Minister Prince Khalifa bin Salman Al Khalifa, at Al-Sakhir Palace today.

The meeting reviewed a number of local issues aimed at pushing the development process forward and achieving more prosperity for the kingdom and its people.

HM the King stressed Bahrain’s steadfast strides towards adopting development initiatives and harnessing all potentials in order to meet the citizens’ needs and bring about more national achievements, highlighting the importance of consensus between the executive and the legislative branches in achieving more development and progress for the country and its people.

HM King Hamad stressed that consensus on subsidy restructuring should be given priority to ensure that government subsidies benefit the citizens who are affected by fee increase, affirming that there will be no fee hike until the joint executive-legislative committee completes its work, and until the National Audit Office makes sure that the process is in line with the laws and criteria in force in the kingdom.

HM King Hamad thanked HRH Premier and His Royal Highness Prince Salman bin Hamad Al Khalifa, the Crown Prince, Deputy Supreme Commander and First Deputy Prime Minister, for their efforts to enhance Bahrain’s progress and improve government action across various sectors, lauding the distinction of Bahraini competencies and expertise, and their role n enriching the national action march.

HM King Hamad also received, in the presence of HRH the Prime Minister, the Saudi Ambassador to Bahrain, Dr. Abdulla bin Abdul-Malik Al-Sheikh, who handed over to him a written message from the Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Salman bin Abdulaziz Al-Saud inviting him to attend the closing ceremony of the King Abdulaziz Camel Festival, set to be held in Riyadh next month.

HM the King expressed thanks and appreciation to King Salman for his kind invitation, lauding the depth of the brotherly Bahraini-Saudi relations, and their steady progress in various fields.

HM King Hamad also lauded Saudi Arabia’s efforts in organising the regionally and globally-leading King Abdulaziz Camel Festival, stressing that the festival reflect the civilisational and historical depth of Saudi Arabia’s authentic heritage.

As part of community partnership and reinforcement of interaction with national, official and public organisations, Interior Minister Lt-General Shaikh Rashid bin Abdullah Al Khalifa met public figures, including religious scholars, members of the Council of Representatives and the Shura Council, representatives of human rights organisations, media editors-in-chief and journalists, businessmen, lawyers, physicians, owners of majalis, dignitaries, and heads of sports clubs, social and youth centres. 
At the meeting, the minister delivered the following speech:

"I am glad to welcome you all and thank you for accepting the invitation to attend this meeting that comes as part of community partnership.
The general indications at present show stability in the security situation in the Kingdom. I want to inform you about some important public security-related matters in the context of transparency and community partnership that all of us want to sustain in the interest of national security.
Here I should highlight some important terrorist operations carried out in 2017. I have chosen four key operations. We start with the Jau jailbreak that targeted police personnel and led to the death of Policeman Abdulsalam Saif. Another operation was in February when First Lt Hisham Al Hamadi was attacked and killed. In June a police patrol was targeted in Deraz resulting in the death of Policeman Abdulsamad Haji while a number of policemen were injured. In October a security bus was targeted on Shaikh Khalifa bin Salman Highway and led to the death of Policeman Salman and injuries to a number of personnel. There were other operations in the same period that we didn’t highlight.
With these developments on the security front, efforts have been intensified and operations coordinated to limit any escalation in the security situation and win through the initiative in the field. A comprehensive operation was initiated to gather information about the active organisations and their members, in coordination with the National Security Agency and other security agencies. This operation continued for a time and even as it was on, some terrorist incidents occurred such as the oil pipeline blast in Buri in November.
The observation of the situation as it developed, and the ongoing operations, showed that terror cells were responsible for storing weapons and bomb-making material and for transporting and distributing bombs and cash.
Those envelopes that you see contain BD50 each as reward, unfortunately not for police but murderers and shows that murder is cheap, and committing acts of terror and vandalism can be rewarding. The cells are run by individuals in Iran who coordinate with the Iranian Revolutionary Guards, the Popular Crowd Forces in Iraq (Popular Mobilisation Forces) and the Hezbollah in Lebanon to train terrorists. This fact has been highlighted in the past and continues to be highlighted.
I want to affirm that those persons would be held accountable and if the countries they are living in do not cooperate with the Interpol and ignore the Red Notice or bilateral coordination, then those individuals will have no civil rights or right to stay among us. This is what we will work to achieve.
After a vigorous operation, by the grace of God the targets were identified and classified according to the dangers they posed. Thereafter, a security plan was put in place to target the sources of risks and threats to the homeland on the security map. It was the most important preventive security operation and essentially achieved the following results:
First: Arrest of 47 main terrorists. Most of them are members of three groups (Saraya al-Ashtar, Saraya Al Muqawama Al Sha'biya and Saraya al-Mukhtar). These groups have been internationally designated as terrorist organisations and their members as terrorists, having proven to the world that they had committed terrorist acts.
Second: Foiling of terrorist crimes including attempts to assassinate officials and public figures, targeting of police officers, policemen and security patrols, arson and vandalism targeting oil establishments to hit the national economy, and plots to vandalise and disrupt national celebrations.
Third: Arrest of a number of dangerous fugitives accused in earlier terrorist crimes. The security authorities carried out 105 security missions, including search of 42 sites and warehouses. A total of 290 fugitives and suspects were referred to the Public Prosecution and a quantity of weapons, equipment and explosives seized. The Public Prosecutor’s office will release the details of its investigations later.
Fourth: Identification of the intentions and capabilities of the terrorists, where they were trained and their areas of operations.
Fifth: The compilation of the intelligence information on the size of a group and its affiliates inside and outside the country.
Sixth: follow up to arrest the remaining fugitives.

Respected Attendees,

Our security mission does not end with the uncovering of a terror group and the arrest of lawbreakers. Ours is a comprehensive mission which aims to achieve security and stability across the country, and to have a comprehensive security viewpoint to understand the main reasons and motives that have a bearing on the general security situation.
The primary issue that I want to focus on, owing to its direct relation with our security and stability, is our national identity. Our Bahraini identity was affected in the aftermath of the 2011 incidents and had its implications for social relations. There have been many efforts to include everyone and bring the situation under control. These efforts have been led by His Majesty the King through his resolve to interact with the people on various national occasions and through meetings with the dignitaries of the governorates and the public, in addition to honouring outstanding individuals in various areas, including creative, cultural and sports fields. His Royal Highness the Prime Minister and His Royal Highness the Crown Prince, Deputy Supreme Commander and First Deputy Prime Minister have been keen to interact with the community through their weekly majalis as part of their efforts to forge partnership with citizens. In addition, field visits by my brother ministers and officials have been good opportunities to learn about a situation and meet the people’s needs through providing welfare and services.
On many occasions, HM the King has highlighted that we are adopting a moderate approach. I understand from this that HM the King has called upon the people to free themselves from the isolation of sectarianism and extremism and progress towards nationalism. It is a call for positivity and optimism. It is a call for the generous love of a father. The achievement of this national goal requires from us an effort to confront extremism, sectarianism and hatred.
Let me remind you of what I said more than ten years ago. That the first directive I received from HM the King was: “Remember you are here to serve all”. This meant all people without exception. On receiving this directive, I wondered why HM had given it and what did it mean? Then I realised that HM the King wanted all to be blessed with security and stability so as to protect his nation against pain and suffering.
If we review HM the King’s reforms project, we realise it is the largest national project that has included the approval of the National Action Charter, the drafting of the Constitution, the creation of the National Assembly representing the Council or Representatives and the Shura Council, and the endorsement of laws and rules. In this major achievement we cannot find a single word that discriminates between one citizen and another.
Let me ask you a question: How do you want Bahrain to be for your children? Do you want Bahrain of 2011? Do you want our children to live in disagreement? We, by the grace of God, have been raised in a nation that is filled with love. Therefore it is our duty to safeguard the trust we received.
I want to focus on the dangers of targeting our Bahraini identity, as there are issues related to upbringing based on wrong doctrines, promotion of incitement, negative reports in the foreign media, and behavioral tendency to remain isolated that goes against integration, all of which work to create closed societies. This has prompted us to go for a strategy to reinforce the sense of belonging to the nation.
The tendency to promote incitement is an issue that should not recur. It occurred through political or religious speeches or the media. It has had a negative effect on the national identity and spirit. This issue should be kept under observation and those responsible should be held accountable through the laws and regulations as well as the spirit of nationalism. As for the upbringing based on wrong doctrines and training children at home and in schools, I want to thank His Excellency the Education Minister for implementing the national education programme. It needs to be given prominence for its goals to be achieved, as it should be considered as a primary matter. In my opinion, teachers are important, for they believe in their national mission and can pass it on to the youth.
Brothers and sisters, 
I present a comprehensive initiative to develop the spirit of belonging to the nation that focuses on five elements: legislation and rules, curriculums, publications, public relations campaigns, and programmes for the purpose. I look forward to the implementation of this national project through your participation and with some of the participants becoming members of the committee that would be formed to set the details of a related study which will be referred to the government. I am also glad to announce on this occasion the annual Interior Ministry Award for the Best National and Loyalty Reinforcement Project. Details about the award will be released later.
I pray to God to be able to succeed in contributing to reinforce the national identity and the spirit of belonging. It is a vital issue, being the foundation to build a modern nation state, which is one of the key goals of HM the King’s reforms project.

Respected Attendees,

There is nothing more painful than losing men who sacrifice their lives for the nation except losing a nation and this will not be allowed by the grace of God. The policemen’s sacrifices have enabled us to confront situations for the truth to be revealed. We have undergone hardships to control and correct the situation. The lesson of these sacrifices to protect our national achievements for Bahrain is to remain a nation of unity and love. The development of nationalism requires big hearts that rise above sectarianism and accommodate all."

Those attending the meeting expressed thanks and appreciation to HE the Interior Minister for his dedication to interact with all sections of society to inform them about the security situation and arrangements. They also hailed the sacrifices made by policemen to safeguard national achievements. 

HH Southern Governor Shaikh Khalifa bin Ali Al Khalifa today discussed with Minister of Housing, Bassim bin Yacoub Al Hamer, a number of issues related to Khalifa Town housing plan. 
Officials from both sides were also present. 
The Southern Governor praised the Housing Ministry's efforts to meet the citizens’ housing needs, stressing the significance of Khalifa Town, which was named by HM King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa after the leader of Bahrain development process HRH Prime Minster Prince Khalifa bin Salman Al Khalifa. 
The governor pointed out that the Khalifa Town housing project is the largest of its kind in Bahrain, emphasizing the governorate’s interest in seeing the project to go according to the plan set to meet the citizens' housing needs of villages of Askar, Jaw and Al-Dour . 
In a joint statement, the governor and the minister confirmed to citizens of the aforementioned villages to have housing priority over other citizens in Khalifa Town. 
The minister expressed appreciation of the governor’s keenness to follow up the Khalifa Town construction progress in the interest of the governorate’s citizens. 
The Khalifa Town work team gave an overview of citizens' queries about the housing services in Khalifa Town. 

A tribute was paid to His Majesty King Hamad bin Isa Al-Khalifa for stressing the importance of consensus between the executive and legislative branches of government. Council of Representatives Speaker Ahmed bin Ibrahim Al-Mulla hailed the royal directives given by HM the King, as he received His Royal Highness Prime Minister Prince Khalifa bin Salman Al-Khalifa. 

HM the King stressed that consensus on subsidy restructuring should be given priority to ensure that government subsidies benefit the citizens who are affected by fee increase, affirming that there will be no fee hike until the joint executive-legislative committee completes its work, and until the National Audit Office makes sure that the process is in line with the laws and criteria in force in the kingdom.

"HM the King’s support to the legislative branch of government represents a catalyst for achievements and development strides and initiatives to muster all resources to meet citizens’ aspirations", the Speaker said. In a statement, he stressed parliamentary resolve to support the vital interests of the nation and citizens, despite daunting economic challenges facing Bahrain and other countries in the region. He paid tribute to HRH the Premier and HRH the Crown Prince, Deputy Supreme Commander and First Deputy Premier, hailing fruitful cooperation to achieve the aspirations of the nation and citizens. 
 

The Ambassador of the Kingdom of Bahrain to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and Permanent Representative of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), Shaikh Humood bin Abdullah Al Khalifa, participated in the emergency meeting of the Council of Foreign Ministers of OIC regarding the launch of a ballistic missile by Houthi militias targeting the city of Riyadh. 

During the meeting, which was held in Jeddah in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia today, the Ambassador stressed that the repeated attacks by the Houthi militias against the populated cities of Saudi Arabia constitute a flagrant and serious violation of UN resolutions and international covenants, and reflect the intention of these militias to spread terror and chaos among civilians. He affirmed the Kingdom of Bahrain’s rejection of all acts of violence, extremism and terrorism. 

He stressed Bahrain's supportive stance towards the Saudi measures taken against all threats to maintain its security and stability. He also asserted the importance of the Security Council to assume its responsibilities to maintain international peace and security, particularly with regard to the implementation of the sanctions set out in Security Council resolutions 2216 (2015) on Yemen, and resolution 2231 (2015) regarding Iran. 

The meeting discussed the launch of a ballistic missile by the Houthi militias towards Riyadh last month, and the proven involvement of the Iranian regime in it, which is a flagrant violation of international conventions, especially Security Council resolution 2216 for the year 2015 on Yemen, which stipulates that all countries must take measures to prevent direct or indirect supplying, selling or transferring arms to the Houthi militias. 

The Ministers of Foreign Affairs also discussed the urgent procedures needed to put an end to those violations and calling on the Security Council to pay special attention to the issue.

The following is the text of the concluding statement of the emergency meeting of the Council of Foreign Ministers of the OIC Member States regarding the launch of a ballistic missile by Houthi militias targeting the city of Riyadh: 

The meeting condemned in the strongest terms the Iranian-backed Houthi militia’s launch of an Iranian-made ballistic missile towards the city of Riyadh on December 19, 2017, describing it as a violation against the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and a proof of the rejection of the Iranian Houthi militias to comply with the international community and its resolutions. 

It denounced Iran's violation of the Foreign Ministers Council's resolution issued at the Mecca Conference in November 2016 and the relevant resolutions of the Security Council by continuously supplying its coup militias with weapons, especially the Iranian-made ballistic missiles. It also condemned Iran's intervention in some countries of the region, calling on it to stop its policies that promote sectarian conflicts, and to refrain from supporting and financing terrorist groups.

The meeting affirmed the support of the Member States to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia in the face of terrorism and those seek to undermine its security. It asserted the solidarity of the Member States with the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia in all its steps and measures to maintain its security and stability. It also called upon all Member States to take collective action against this aggression act and those who stand behind it by supporting the perpetrators, adding that any violation of the security of the Kingdom is a prejudice to the security and cohesion of the Muslim world as a whole. 

The Meeting called upon all Member States and the international community to take serious and effective action to prevent the occurrence or repetition of such attacks in the future, and to hold accountable those have smuggled weapons or provided training or support for this coup militia. 

It reaffirmed that this violation is a grave and serious development by the Iranian coup militias, which defies the international community and threatens regional and international security. It also stressed that it is contrary to international humanitarian law to target cities and populated villages. 

The meeting reiterated its unwavering commitment to support the legitimate government led by the President of the Republic of Yemen, Abdrabbuh Mansour Hadi, and emphasized the importance of efforts to reach a comprehensive political solution that eliminates all forms of external interference and puts an end to the suffering of the Yemeni people in line with the Gulf Initiative and its mechanisms, and in accordance with the outcome of the National Dialogue and Security Council resolution 2216.

It referred to paragraph (2) of the resolution issued by the emergency meeting of the Council of Foreign Ministers held in Makkah on 17 November 2016, calling for the activation of the working group comprised of the Member States of the Executive Committee to hold a meeting as soon as possible to consider practical steps to ensure that such violations are not repeated.

The meeting requested the Secretary-General to take all measures to implement this resolution and to report it to the United Nations and regional organizations as well as to prepare a report in this regard for the next ministerial meeting.

A joint Committee of the Gulf Petrochemical Industries Company (GPIC) Executive Management and its Labour Union held its first meeting of the year, presided over by GPIC President Dr. Abdulrahman Jawahery. Labour Union Chairman Yaqoob Yousef was also present.
Congratulating the participants on the New Year, Dr. Jawahery expressed the hope 2018 would be a year of prosperity for the Company and its employees. He also thanked the members of the Executive Management, the Labour Union and all employees for their dedication and commitment to the one-family spirit, which, he said, had a significant impact on its achievements and profits, in addition to it winning local, regional and global awards.

Dr. Jawahery said the Company’s achievements in 2017 were due to the combined efforts of all and resulted in a significant reduction in spending and an increase in production, despite the challenges of the global petrochemical industry. He said during the same period, GPIC was also able to exceed all production targets, when the total combined production of Urea, Methanol and Ammonia reached 1,604,725 metric tons.

Dr. Jawahery said the Company winning the awards was also the result of all employees working together, which resulted in it winning the Queen Elizabeth II Safety Award for the Gold category, instituted by the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents (RoSPA).

The Company also won the Saudi Arabia Award for Environmental Management in the Islamic World in the private sector as well as the Arab Social Responsibility Award in the best companies of the Arab world category.

Dr. Jawahery applauded the management of the Labour Union and said it was working for the good of the Company and displaying a high level of unity and energy in facing the challenges and difficulties. He said the work of the Labour Union ensures the compatibility between various sections to improve performance and productivity. 

Union officials thanked the Chairman and the Board of Directors for all the privileges it gives to employees. They thanked Dr. Jawahery for his support to the Union’s activities and for his balanced leadership, which contributed to a comfortable working environment for all workers. 

The Union pledged to continue working in the same way in 2018 and called upon all employees to continue with their co-operation and understanding with the Executive Management. 

His Majesty King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa received a cable of thanks from Angolan President Joao Manuel Lourenço, in reply to HM the King's congratulatory cable to him on his country's Independence Day, wishing His Majesty lasting good health and happiness, and the Kingdom of Bahrain's people more progress and prosperity.

Ali Pantony, previously acting deputy features editor at Glamour, has left the publication to go freelance and is available for writing and editing commissions. In addition to Glamour, Ali has written for titles including Red, Cosmopolitan, Grazia, BBC Three, Refinery29 and Inspire at the Daily Mail, where she was junior commissioning editor before Glamour. She is also available for in-house subbing shifts. 

Saskia Quirke has been appointed acting fashion director at Women's Health. Saskia will be covering Charlie Lambros' maternity leave and will commence her role 22 January. As well as receiving information on activewear and SS18 collections, Saskia will also be working on brand partnerships.

In addition to her role on the magazine Saskia is available for freelance shoots, commissions and projects. Her website can be found at saskiaquirke.com 

South Korea went into swoon mode Sunday -- at the feet of a party apparatchik from the North.

Hyon Song-Wol is, however, no dourly-dressed, suit-wearing bureaucrat from the nuclear-armed nation, but the leader of Pyongyang's most popular girl band.Cameras followed her every move as the glamorous songstress swept through Seoul at the head of a North Korean delegation sent to inspect performance venues for the Pyeongchang Olympic Games.

Wearing a fur muffler and exuding an air of confident calm, Hyun was unphased by the throng of cameras that followed her everywhere.

Believed to be in her late 30s or early 40s, Hyon is as close to a megastar as North Korea probably has.

Her "Excellent Horse-like Lady" -- a term describing a smart and energetic woman -- was a big hit in the 2000s.

She is also a politically powerful figure as an alternate member of North Korea's ruling Workers' Party's central committee.

Hyon was once rumoured to be a former girlfriend of North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un and became the subject of lurid and -- as it turned out -- incorrect 2013 reports in the South that she and a dozen other musicians had been executed for appearing in porn movies.

North Korea watchers dismiss speculation over her ties with Kim, saying in the deeply patriarchal North, romantic partners of leaders past and present are forced to keep a low profile.

Hyon heads the 10-member Moranbong Band -- the public face of North Korean soft power.

The all-female outfit perform a mixture of Western-style pop and patriotic North Korean numbers, and are frequently seen sporting miniskirts and shoulder-baring dresses.

Their style -- highly unusual in the conservative North -- is seen as quaintly provincial in the South, with its slick, image-obsessed pop scene, and it has also earned them a cult following among North Korean watchers.

The band is not expected to make the trip south for the Games next month, but other musical groups -- as well as hundreds of "cheerleaders" will be there.

Hyon's presence in the run-up to the international event -- which until recently was marked by global tensions over North Korea's missile and nuclear programme -- is seen by some as the latest attempt to capitalise on the appeal of its performers.

South Korea's voracious media followed her every move Sunday, with tiny details about her facial expressions and fashion style making headlines.

Hyon's attire -- from her shoes to an expensive-looking fur -- drew intense debate, with one fashion analyst likening her style to the US first lady.

"I think she was trying to emulate the style of Melania Trump... and trying to showcase the image of being rich by wearing the fur," Heo Euna, head of Korea Image Strategy Institute, told Yonhap news agency.

Pyongyang has often deployed young women to soften its international image, from hundreds of "cheerleaders" sent to previous sporting events in the South, to waitresses at the North's network of overseas restaurants, who put on a nightly musical and dance show for clients.

Holders Saracens are through to the European Champions Cup quarter-finals after Wasps thrashed Ulster 26-7 on Sunday.

Munster and French pair La Rochelle and Racing 92 also progressed with wins against Castres, Harlequins and Leicester respectively.

Ulster came into the weekend as one of three Irish sides topping their groups but their crushing defeat at free-scoring Wasps meant they dropped to third in pool 1 and out of contention.

La Rochelle beat Harlequins 16-7 to top that stanza and despite moving up to second, Wasps missed out on the quarters.

Saracens had been in desperate waters following back-to-back pool 2 defeats to Clermont and a draw at Ospreys but they hammered Northampton 62-14 on Saturday and that was enough to see them squeak into the knock-out stages, where they will face a trip to dominant Leinster.

The Irish outfit completed a perfect pool stage campaign with a 23-14 victory at Montpellier on Saturday, but despite finishing with the best record they won't be relishing the prospect of a last-eight clash with the champions.

"See you in Dublin," said Saracens captain Brad Barritt on Twitter.

"Come on Wasps you good thing," added South African flanker Schalk Brits.

Ulster looked set to make it a perfect pool stage for the Irish but ran into an inspired Wasps, who claimed a bonus point thanks to tries from Guy Thompson, Tom Cruise, South African full-back Willie Le Roux and Jake Cooper-Woolley, Danny Cipriani going three from four with the conversions.

Ulster's reply from Sean Reidy was scant consolation.

Had Ulster won, no English side would have made it into the quarter-finals -- and that just two years after five Premiership sides made it into the last eight.

- Munster romp -

Twice winners Munster needed to beat Castres to ensure they would top pool 4 and they never looked in any danger, racking up six tries in a 48-3 thumping to qualify as third seeds, meaning they will face three-time winners Toulon in the last eight.

Keith Earls, Rhys Marshall, Simon Zebo, Alex Wootton and James Cronin crossed the whitewash while Munster also scored a penalty try as they recorded a 60th win in 64 European games at Thomond Park and a record 17th qualification for the quarter-finals.

La Rochelle scored tries through Pierre Aguillon and Kini Murimurivalu in the first half to take control against Quins, who ruined Wasps' hopes with a last-gasp winning try last week.

"For the first (participation) it's pretty exceptional," said La Rochelle fly-half Jeremy Sinzelle.

Playing in the Champions Cup for the first time, La Rochelle now face a trip to pool 5 winners Scarlets -- the first Welsh side in six years to reach the knock-out stage.

Finalists two years ago, Racing earned their berth by hanging on to beat Leicester 23-20 in the snowy English midlands.

The Parisians scored two tries in the first 12 minutes against a team who were already eliminated.

Yet Leicester responded to the early scores by Henry Chavancy and Maxime Machenaud with a display of pride. George Ford kicked three penalties before Brendon O'Connor scored a try early in the second half.

Twice in the last 15 minutes, Ford converted penalties to level the scores, but Machenaud restored the French lead both times.

In the dying seconds, Leicester won a penalty five metres from the line. The Tigers decided they would rather gamble on scoring a try to win rather than kicking a penalty for a draw, but Racing's defence held firm.

"We knew it was on the line," Racing's Irish lock forward Donnacha Ryan said. "We showed great determination in the end."

Racing will play away to French champions and last season's finalists Clermont in the quarters.

Memphis Depay struck a dramatic late winner as Lyon beat 10-man Paris Saint-Germain 2-1 on Sunday to move within eight points of the Ligue 1 leaders.

Nabil Fekir gave the hosts a shock second-minute lead at Groupama Stadium with a brilliant free-kick, but PSG snatched an equaliser on the stroke of half-time as left-back Layvin Kurzawa hammered home a stunning volley.

PSG full-back Dani Alves was given a straight red card for dissent, and Lyon made their man advantage count deep into injury-time as substitute Depay picked out the top corner.

"At the start, I wanted to cross, but I saw that the keeper was on the side of the goal," Fekir told Canal+.

"It's going to be difficult (to catch PSG), and the goal of the club is to take a Champions League place."

PSG centre-back Marquinhos added: "Football is like that, they manage to shoot and score two goals."

Lyon retook second place from Marseille after inflicting only a second league defeat of the season on PSG, but Bruno Genesio's men would still need an unlikely collapse from the capital club to launch a title challenge.

"We're happy with the result, especially with beating the leaders when we're aiming for second or third place," said coach Genesio.

With Neymar missing due to a thigh problem, Kylian Mbappe returned to the away team's starting XI after scoring as a substitute in the midweek 8-0 thrashing of Dijon, when Neymar netted four times.

Lyon caught the runaway league leaders cold with less than two minutes on the clock, as French international Fekir produced a moment of magic.

Alphonse Areola was anticipating a cross when Fekir shaped to take a free-kick from the right-hand side, but the attacking midfielder whipped in a shot that flicked the inside of the post on its way past the stranded PSG goalkeeper.

The 24-year-old has now scored 16 league goals this season from 19 appearances, while it was also the earliest PSG had conceded in a Ligue 1 game since May 2007.

- Cavani left waiting for record -

PSG were rocked by Lyon's intense early pressing, but Edinson Cavani, looking for the goal he needed to break Zlatan Ibrahimovic's all-time club goalscoring record after levelling the Swede's total of 156 on Wednesday, saw a long-range lob spin narrowly wide after home keeper Anthony Lopes's poor clearance.

Mbappe, already bleeding from his head from an earlier challenge, had to be stretchered off and replaced by Julian Draxler after being flattened by some strong goalkeeping from Portuguese Lopes.

PSG levelled in first-half stoppage-time, though, as Kurzawa blasted home a magnificent left-footed volley off the crossbar from his fellow full-back Alves's dinked cross.

Unai Emery's side were reduced to 10 men before the hour mark when Brazilian Alves was sent off for dissent after becoming incensed by a free-kick decision, with Marco Verratti perhaps lucky not to follow him after knocking the red card out of referee Clement Turpin's hand.

Lyon almost retook the lead with 13 minutes to play as Rafael headed over from close range, before Cavani was also booked for dissent as PSG continued to lose their heads.

Maxwel Cornet saw a low effort turned behind by Areola, but it was 69th-minute substitute Depay who provided the winning moment in style.

The former Manchester United winger collected the ball just outside the area in the fourth minute of added time and planted a magnificent, curling finish into the top corner to score his ninth league goal of an up-and-down season.

Earlier on Sunday, fourth-placed Monaco eased to a 3-1 victory over Metz in the principality.

Brazilian left-back Jorge opened the scoring for the reigning champions on the stroke of half-time and Rachid Ghezzal added a second after visiting goalkeeper Eiji Kawashima was sent off.

Ibrahima Niane pulled one back for bottom club Metz, but Rony Lopes put any thoughts of a comeback to bed with a late tap-in.

Rows of sewing machines in one Chinese garment factory on the border with North Korea are now silent, unmanned after UN sanctions sent home their seamstresses from the secretive country.

Factory owners, merchants and shop owners in the border city of Dandong - China's main trading hub with neighbouring North Korea - are feeling the pinch from the United Nations resolutions.

Dandong bet its economy on trade with the North, seeing the benefits of economic growth and rapacious consumption of Chinese products across the border.

Envisioning a bright future, the city expanded, building the Dandong New District as a cooperation zone on the banks of the Yalu River, which marks the border.

A massive four-lane, US$350-million bridge with a new customs area was built to link the zone to the North.

Construction of the bridge finished three years ago yet it has not opened. On the North Korean side, concrete runs into fields of snow as Pyongyang has not built roads to meet the bridge.

Now UN sanctions - which Beijing has backed as it grows tired of its Cold War-era ally's nuclear and missile tests - are buffeting Dandong's economy, which slowed in 2016.

In October last year, its port missed a bond payment.

"For Dandong's economy, and the livelihood of the average person in the city, there is an impact," said Lu Chao, director of the Border Studies Institute at the Liaoning Academy of Social Sciences.

"Trade with the North was a pillar of Dandong's economy."

EMPTY FACTORY

The potential of the new bridge and cheap North Korean labour brought Lin and his garment factory to a Dandong factory zone where signs admonishing workers not to smoke or litter are in both Chinese and Korean.

"The North Koreans are disciplined and hard working," Lin said of the 100 North Korean women - "all 18 to 32 years old" - he recruited. He asked his full name not be used.

Last year, Lin negotiated a contract with a Dandong labour outsourcer and a North Korean company. On Sep 1, the women arrived, led by a North Korean manager.

The contract covered all the details - a clean dorm for the workers, hot showers three times a week, and time twice a week to "study the policies and worship" the leader Kim Jong-un.

"They look at their leader like he's a god," Lin said, noting the salaries were to be paid directly to the North Korean manager.

As he spoke to AFP on his office sofa sipping tea, he rattled off the UN resolution numbers that have crippled his once thriving garment business.

UN Resolution 2371 turned Lin's plans upside down - his workers arrived two days after China announced its implementation: No new contracts with North Korea.

For the past 10 years, Lin hauled material and cloth to factories across the river in Sinuiju and Pyongyang, where North Korean workers turned it into exportable jackets, coats, and other clothing.

As new sanctions came down, he saw the writing on the wall and began planning.

"We thought if we can't trade with North Korea, well we can get North Koreans to work for us in China."

Today, Lin's three-floor garment factory is mostly empty. There are no able and cheap Chinese workers in the city, he said. Garment imports from the North have also been sanctioned.

There were 30,000 North Koreans working in Dandong before the August sanctions but nearly 6,000 have gone home, he said.

DANDONG NEW DISTRICT

Many of the apartments, shopfronts and restaurant spaces in Dandong's New District are empty.

"There's nothing over here," said Yue Yue, a real estate agent at the New District's Singapore City development, where only one-third of the apartments have been sold.

"We've dropped the prices a bit for the apartments further from the river," she admitted, noting they had been lowered more than 30 per cent.

"I'm hoping for the bridge to open."

Lu of the Border Institute says that is not likely with the current sanctions regime in place.

North Korean-run businesses in the city have begun to close, with several restaurants forced to shut their doors.

Truck and train traffic on the older, narrow one-lane Sino-Korean Friendship Bridge that carries most of the trade is said to be down.

Roughly 90 per cent of the North's past exports have been sanctioned and new measures now target goods travelling in the other direction.

Wang Xueliang, who runs the Dandong Balance Trade Company, said he is no longer allowed to send tractors, trucks and cars to the North.

Before he could sell one or two vehicles a month to North Korean clients who paid in yuan or dollars.

China cut off all vehicle sales to the North in early January, he said.

"For the moment we will keep operating," Wang said. "But it's having an effect."

Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos said Sunday he would seek a new truce with the ELN group in a bid to salvage peace talks that had been set back after a recent offensive by the rebel group.

The ELN indicated a willingness to resume negotiations.

Santos wrote on Twitter that the government's chief negotiator, Gustavo Bell, "will travel to Quito to explore the possibility of a new ceasefire that will allow peace talks with the ELN to continue."

The president said his decision followed a call from United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, who urged him to renew dialogue with the leftist guerrillas. Guterres had met with Santos in Bogota earlier this month to discuss the peace process.

The government suspended talks on Wednesday following an offensive by the ELN -- the National Liberation Army, the last active guerrilla group in Colombia -- that ended a 101-day ceasefire.

In recent days, the guerrillas have attacked government forces and targeted petroleum infrastructure. At least four soldiers have been killed, and some 22 presumed rebels were captured in a government counteroffensive, officials said.

The ELN has meanwhile released a statement expressing a willingness to resume the peace talks, which began in February 2017, and to discuss "all pending issues."

It said it was prepared "to agree to another ceasefire."

Santos, who is set to step down in August, hopes to reach an agreement similar to the one signed with the much larger FARC guerrilla group in November 2016. That accord led to the Communist rebels' disarmament and transformation into a political party.

Colombia's long internal conflict has had a devastating impact, leaving eight million people dead, unaccounted-for or displaced.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov on Sunday said the West’s “unprecedented Russiaphobia” was worse than at the height of the Cold War.
“This Russiaphobia is unprecedented. We never saw this during the Cold War,” Lavrov, fresh from a visit to New York on Thursday and Friday, said in an interview with the Russian daily Kommersant’s online edition.
“Back then there were some rules, some decorum... Now, all decorum has been cast aside,” he said.
Lavrov denounced what he called “efforts to punish Russia by any means possible,” calling sanctions imposed by the United States and the European Union “absurd and baseless.”
Russia was slapped with sanctions in 2014 because of its annexation of Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula and the armed conflict in eastern Ukraine, with Kiev and the West accusing Moscow of backing rebels — allegations the Russian authorities deny.
Russia is also mired in a doping scandal which led to the exclusion of its athletes from the 2016 Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro and the World Athletics Championships in London last year.
The International Olympics Committee has also suspended Russia from next month’s Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang, South Korea. “Clean” Russian athletes will be allowed to take part under the Olympic banner.

Pope Francis took a tough stand against political corruption on Sunday, hours before wrapping up his Latin American trip with a mass at an air base before a million faithful."There are exceptions. But by and large, Latin America's political culture is sicker than it is healthy," the pontiff told bishops from across Peru, a country that has seen its political parties and presidents plagued by dishonesty and graft.

"What is wrong with Peru, that when one finishes being president one ends up behind bars?" Francis wondered aloud.

"(Ollanta) Humala, is in jail, (Alejandro) Toledo is in jail (living in US awaiting extradition);(Alberto) Fujimori was detained until just now; Alan Garcia, isn't sure if he's in or out: What is wrong morally?" he asked.

Leaders of other Latin American nations have also been accused of graft.

"If we let ourselves be led by people who only speak the language of corruption, we are done for," the Argentinian pontiff warned, using a popular Peruvian slang term and earning some laughter.

Earlier Sunday, the 81-year-old pope delivered a homily to 500 nuns, and met with bishops.

The pontiff on Saturday had urged Latin America's faithful to fight rampant violent crime against women, comments which came during a mass in Peru's largest northern city of Trujillo.

"I wish to invite you to combat a plague across our Latin American region: the numerous cases of violent crimes against women, from beatings to rape to murder," Francis told the crowd.

Half of the 25 countries with the greatest number of murders of women are in Latin America, according to the UN Women agency.

While in Peru, the pope railed against "great business interests" for endangering the Amazon and its indigenous people and lashed out again at corruption in politics.

"There is so much damage done by this... thing that infects everything," Francis said. "And it's always the poorest and the environment that get the short end of the stick."

On Friday, he sounded a stark warning about the future of the rainforest and indigenous tribe members, saying they had "never been so threatened."

Thousands of indigenous people had traveled to meet the pontiff from throughout the Amazon basin region of Peru, Brazil and Bolivia to meet the pope in the Peruvian city of Puerto Maldonado.

Francis began his Latin American visit in Chile last Monday.

There, he highlighted the plight of vulnerable immigrants, apologized to victims of sexual abuse by Catholic priests, prayed with survivors of Augusto Pinochet's brutal dictatorship, and called for protection of Chile's persecuted indigenous people.

Gunmen stormed a luxury hotel in Kabul and killed at least 18 people, most of them foreigners, sparking a 12-hour battle with Afghan forces backed by Norwegian troops that left terrified guests scrambling to escape.

Six Ukrainians were among those killed in the Taliban-claimed assault on the six-storey Intercontinental Hotel in the Afghan capital, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Pavlo Klimkin said on Twitter.

Afghan interior ministry spokesman Najib Danish said 14 foreigners were among the dead, but did not specify their nationalities, in comments to Afghanistan's Tolo News hours after the overnight attack that ended Sunday.

Terrified hotel guests climbed down bedsheets tied to balconies to escape the gunmen rampaging through the hilltop hotel overlooking the Afghan capital.

One lost his grip and fell in Tolo News television footage, which also showed black smoke and flames billowing from the hotel.

Special forces were lowered by helicopters during the night onto the roof of the landmark 1960s building. Afghan security forces killed all six attackers, the interior ministry said.

They were aided by Norwegian troops, Norwegian military officials told public broadcaster NRK. Norway has helped train Afghan elite forces since 2007.

"I want to say this explicitly and frankly and precisely... in total 14 foreigners and four Afghans were martyred in the attack on the hotel," Danish said on Tolo, adding that more than 160 people had been rescued during the attack.

Afghan officials have been known to understate death tolls in high-profile attacks.

Danish also said preliminary information showed the attackers may have already been inside the hotel before launching the assault, but gave no further details and warned an investigation had to be carried out.

But he did say that among the dead were 11 people from Afghan airline Kam Air. The company's CEO, Captain Samad Usman Samadi, earlier said 42 of its personnel had been at the hotel during the attack -- at least 16 of whom were still missing.

"We fear for their lives," he told AFP.

A foreign ministry official told AFP that senior Afghan diplomat Abdullah Poyan was among the fatalities.

Mufti Ahmad Farzan, a member of the High Peace Council, responsible for reconciliation efforts with militants, was also killed in the attack, Danish said.

The Taliban claimed responsibility for the assault via email. The attack followed security warnings in recent days to avoid hotels and other locations frequented by foreigners in war-torn Kabul.

"We are hiding in our rooms. I beg the security forces to rescue us as soon as possible before they reach and kill us," one guest, who did not want to be named, told AFP by telephone during the siege.

His phone has been switched off since then.

- 'Fleeing like crazy' -

Officials said four gunmen burst into the hotel, which is not part of the global InterContinental chain, on Saturday night, opening fire and taking dozens of people hostage.

Afghan Telecom regional director Aziz Tayeb, who was one of dozens of people at the hotel attending an IT conference, said he saw the attackers enter.

"Everything became chaotic in a moment. I hid behind a pillar and I saw people who were enjoying themselves a second ago screaming and fleeing like crazy, and some of them falling down, hit by bullets," Tayeb told AFP.

Local resident Abdul Sattar said he had spoken by phone to friends who are hotel staff and had been trapped inside.

"Suddenly (militants) attacked the dinner gathering... (then) they broke into the rooms, took some people hostage and they opened fire on some of them," he told AFP.

Interior ministry deputy spokesman Nasrat Rahimi said the attackers were armed with light weapons and rocket-propelled grenades when they stormed the hotel.

Security in Kabul has been ramped up since May 31 when a massive truck bomb killed some 150 people and wounded around 400 -- mostly civilians.

- Devastating attacks -

But the resurgent Taliban and Islamic State are both scaling up their assaults on the city.

The attack on the Intercontinental was just one of several bloody assaults Sunday.

In a village in the northern province of Balkh, Taliban militants went from house to house in the middle of the night, pulling police from their homes and shooting them dead.

At least 18 officers were killed, deputy police chief Abdul Raziq Qaderi told AFP.

In Herat in the west at least eight civilians were killed when a car hit a Taliban-planted roadside mine, officials there said.

The last major attack on a high-end hotel in Kabul was in March 2014 when four teenage gunmen raided the Serena, killing nine people including AFP journalist Sardar Ahmad.

In 2011 a suicide attack claimed by the Taliban killed 21 people at the Intercontinental including 10 civilians.

Danish said authorities were probing how the attackers got past the hotel's security, which was taken over by a private company three weeks ago.

"We will investigate it," he said.

A hotel employee told AFP that as he fled the venue he saw the new security guards running for their lives.

"They didn't do anything, they didn't attack. They had no experience," the man said on condition of anonymity.

Tens of thousands of people took to the streets of northern Greece's biggest city Thessaloniki on Sunday, police said, in a long-running row between Athens and Skopje over the use of the name Macedonia.

Athens argues that the name Macedonia suggests that Skopje has territorial claims to the northern Greek region of the same name, of which Thessaloniki is the capital.

The region was the centre of Alexander the Great's ancient kingdom, a source of Greek pride.

Police said more than 90,000 demonstrators had joined the protest in Thessaloniki, organised by hardline clerics, far-right leaders and Greek diaspora groups.

Protest leaders said at least 400,000 people had turned up.

"We estimate there were at least 400,000 people. It is impressive," rally organiser Anastasios Porgialidis told AFP.

Some minor scuffles erupted between the protesters and anarchists who had organised a counter-demonstration, prompting police to intervene with tear gas.

The rally drew members of the neo-Nazi Golden Dawn party who had gathered around the statue of Alexander the Great along with local clergy.

Representatives from the main opposition party, New Democracy, were also present despite a tacit order from its liberal-minded leader Kyriakos Mitsotakis to boycott the protests.

On Sunday after the rally, however, Mitsotakis hailed the "impressive turnout that proves the particularly great sensitivity of society to the issue".

Cretans in traditional costumes who travelled from the southern island with their horses, as well as people from northern Greece wearing costumes from the Macedonian wars era a century ago, crowded at the White Tower on the Thessaloniki waterfront from early in the morning.

Police said 284 buses had transported people from around Greece to the port city.

- 'Not negotiable' -

Greece and Macedonia returned to the United Nations last week hoping to reach a compromise that could end the 27-year dispute over the former Yugoslav republic's name.

Greece's objections to the use of the name Macedonia since the Balkan country's independence in 1991 have hampered the tiny nation's bid to join the European Union and NATO.

"We want to warn our politicians not to dare to betray us. Macedonia is Greek and this is not negotiable", said protester Dimitris Triantafillidis, 50, a shop owner from the northern regional district of Pieria.

The UN negotiator Matthew Nimetz -- a 24-year veteran on the issue -- said last week that he was "very hopeful" that a solution was within reach.

Despite the nationalist fervour that is also being fed by Golden Dawn, Greeks appear to be less militant on the issue than in the past.

In 1992, more than one million people -- 10 percent of the population -- joined a rally in Thessaloniki to proclaim that "Macedonia is Greek".

According to a survey conducted for Greek radio station 24/7 by the Alco polling group, 63 percent of respondents said they thought it was in Greece's best interests to seek a mutually acceptable solution at the UN talks.

And the Greek Orthodox Church, which is traditionally opposed to the use of the term Macedonia by Skopje and led the 1992 rally, appears to have distanced itself from Sunday's events.

Its leader Archbishop Ieronymos on Thursday reportedly told Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras that "national unity is needed... (not) protests and shouts".

- 'National stupidity' -

Tsipras, who is expected to meet with his Macedonian counterpart Zoran Zaev at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, next week, said in an interview published Sunday: "If there is an opportunity for a solution, it would be a national stupidity not to make good use of it."

However, he told Ethnos newspaper that he could understand "the concerns and sensitivities" of the Greeks of the north.

Macedonia is known as the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (FYROM) at the United Nations, although the Security Council acknowledged this was a provisional name when it agreed to membership.

If a deal is reached at the UN talks, it will be put before Greek parliament for approval, with the government expecting the compromise name to be approved despite opposition within some parties.

According to Macedonian media, Nimetz has proposed five alternatives all containing the name.

The Turkish military has started an air and ground operation against Syrian Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG) militia whom Ankara views as "terrorists" linked to outlawed militants.

Turkey's last such cross-border operation -- against the Islamic State extremist group and the Kurdish militia -- was between August 2016 and March 2017.

Launched together with Syrian rebels, Turkish officials hailed its completion as a great success.

Ankara views the YPG and its Democratic Union Party (PYD) political wing as branches of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) which has waged an insurgency inside Turkey since 1984.

It is blacklisted as a terrorist group by Turkey, the United States and the European Union.

But why has Ankara launched this offensive and what are the risks for Turkey?

The reasons

A Turkish official who did not wish to be named said the offensive "aims to liberate the area by eliminating the PKK-YPG-linked administration" in the region of Afrin, accusing the YPG of "repressing the local population through anti-democratic and authoritarian means".

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said one objective was to give Afrin back to "its rightful owners" while Prime Minister Binali Yildirim said the offensive aimed to replace terror with peace in the region.

According to Max Hoffman, associate director and a Turkey expert at Center for American Progress, Turkey is "deeply unhappy" with the existing balance of power in northern Syria ?- where the regime and the Kurds are ascendant.

"Ankara fears that, effectively, a leftist Kurdish statelet deeply hostile to Turkey will be formalised on their southern border," he said.

The militia has been a key ally of the US in its fight against IS, with Washington providing air cover as well as weaponry during the YPG's fight to recapture IS strongholds in Syria last year.

Military analyst Abdullah Agar said US support had "really deepened", causing "a lot of concern" for Turkey.

The risks

The Turkish official said Turkey would learn from its 2016-17 operation in Syria dubbed Euphrates Shield.

"In our efforts to restore peace and stability in Afrin, we will draw from our experiences in Jarabulus, Azaz and Al-Bab," the official said, referring to regions in Syria recaptured from IS during the operation.

The YPG is a disciplined and well-trained force, Aron Lund, a fellow with The Century Foundation, told AFP.

The Kurds "will surely put up hard resistance, but I don't know how heavily armed they are and a determined Turkish attack is probably difficult to fend off," he said.

"If Turkey decides to throw major resources at this battle, and Russia and (Syrian President Bashar al-) Assad stand aside, the balance of power does not look favourable to the Kurds," Lund said.

He added the YPG was likely to do its best to create "diplomatic pressure" to bring Turkey's attacks to an end.

"I cannot foresee that this operation will be easy," Agar said, pointing to the thousands of YPG fighters in the region and around 250,000 civilians living there.

The Turkish army said it was taking every precaution to prevent harm to civilians.

The consequences

Analysts say a critical factor will be whether the offensive has any effect on the peace process for Syria that has been backed by Turkey and Russia in recent weeks.

"Everybody has been watching to see if this connects to the preparations for the Russian-sponsored talks in Sochi or not," Lund said, referring to peace talks to be held on January 30 in the Russian Black Sea resort.

While Moscow has a military presence in the area and a cordial relationship with the YPG, Hoffman suggested the offensive could strain those ties.

Referring to a statement from the PYD saying Russia was as much to blame for this attack as Turkey, Hoffman said the offensive could "drive a wedge" between Moscow and the YPG.

Hoffman added that if the offensive "goes well from Erdogan's perspective and he pushes on into Manbij or Kobane (towns in northern Syria), it could prompt an outright break with the US."

But Lund said the operation may have domestic political ramifications if Ankara is trapped in a military or diplomatic quagmire over Afrin.

"Erdogan is working hard to muster solid majorities in time for the very important Turkish elections of 2019," he said.

The presidential elections in November 2019 follow last year's referendum in which Turks approved creating an executive presidency.

"He'd be well served by a quick, neat military victory, but a fiasco would of course play into the hands of the opposition," Lund said.

Syria's army today announced it had captured the vital Abu Duhur military airport in the country's northwest, more than two years after losing it to rebels and jihadists.

"After a string of special operations, units from our armed forces in coordination with allied fighters succeeded in their military operation and took control of the Abu Duhur military airport in Idlib province," the army said in a statement.

"Engineering units are now dismantling and clearing mines, explosives, and bombs planted by terrorists in the area," he said.

An alliance of jihadists and rebels overran the vast majority of Idlib province in 2015, seizing Abu Duhur in September of that year.

Syrian troops had been advancing on the northwest province of Idlib, and Abu Duhur in particular, as part of a fierce offensive launched in late December with Russian backing.

Regime loyalists have seized dozens of towns and villages as part of the assault, but the air base's capture marks the first military installation Syrian troops have managed to retake in Idlib.

Moscow today confirmed that allied troops were now in control of Abu Duhur.

With its capture, the Syrian army said, troops could now secure a key route leading from the neighbouring province of Aleppo south to the capital Damascus.

Syria's uprising erupted in 2011 with protests against the rule of President Bashar al-Assad, but a government crackdown paved the way for a full-blown civil war.

The government lost swathes of Syrian territory in the first few years of the conflict but, since Russia militarily intervened in 2015, it has steadily regained the upper hand.

Turkish anti-riot police on Sunday blocked protests in Istanbul and the Kurdish-majority southeast against Ankara’s military operation inside Syria.
At least seven people were detained in Kadikoy on the Asian side of Istanbul, an AFP photographer at the scene reported.
One protester was seen with his hands tied behind by the police officers with others were carried roughly away.
The rally had been called by the pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP), whose members are facing a series of legal challenges for alleged ties with the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK).
The police action followed President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s warning of a “heavy price” for anyone joining protests against the Turkish army’s operation to oust Syrian Kurdish militia from northern Syria.
It came a day after Turkey launched its operation with Ankara-backed Syrian rebels to root out the Syrian Kurdish Peoples’ Protection Units (YPG) militia from Afrin.
Turkey views the YPG militia as “terrorists” linked to the PKK, which has fought against the Turkish state since 1984 and is designated as a terror group by Ankara and its Western allies.
In the Kurdish-majority southeastern city of Diyarbakir, police also blocked a protest, surrounding the HDP headquarters and preventing party officials from making a press declaration, an AFP journalist in the city reported.
“People in Afrin will defend themselves. Turks ... will not gain anything, it is impossible. I call on the international community ... to stop Turkey,” protester Hakki Karagoz said.

Iranian officials on Sunday voiced support for efforts to end a dispute in neighbouring Iraq sparked by a Kurdish referendum on independence last year and underscored the need for Iraqi unity.

President Hassan Rouhani and the secretary of the Supreme National Security Council, Ali Shamkhani, made the comments during talks in Tehran with the prime minister of Iraq's Kurdish autonomous region.

Rouhani told Nechirvan Barzani that Tehran backs "a united Iraq" in which "the legal and legitimate rights" of the Kurdish people are recognised in line with the constitution, the presidency said.Shamkhani said Tehran "will do everything in its power to support efforts to ease the differences" between Baghdad and the Kurdish regional capital Arbil, official IRNA news agency reported.

Iraq's Kurds voted overwhelmingly in September to establish their own country but the non-binding vote was deemed illegal by the federal government in Baghdad which took retaliatory measures.

The referendum was also condemned in neighbouring Iran and Turkey.

On Saturday, Barzani met Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi in Baghdad for the first time since the failed push by the Kurds to secede.

A statement from Abadi's office said they discussed the "political and security situation and ways of settling disputes".

After September's vote, Baghdad imposed an air blockade on international flights to the Kurdish autonomous region's two main airports and retook disputed areas, including oil fields from which the Kurds derived the bulk of their revenue.

Shamkhani said Tehran hoped to "contribute to the success" of the dialogue that has opened between Baghdad and Arbil.

Bahraini police said Sunday they had arrested 47 people on charges linked to terrorism, including plots to assassinate "public figures", as well as filing charges against another 290.

Authorities have cracked down hard on dissent since mass street protests in 2011 which demanded an elected prime minister and constitutional monarchy in the Sunni-ruled, Shiite majority kingdom.

The government accuses Shiite Tehran of training "terrorist cells" in the tiny island state, located between rival regional heavyweights Iran and Saudi Arabia.

Iran denies involvement.

In a statement released by Bahrain's police force on Sunday, the interior minister said law enforcement had arrested 47 "terrorist agents" and foiled attacks across the country, including planned killings of "officials and public figures".

Police had also transferred the cases of 290 wanted persons and suspects to the public prosecutor's office, it said.

The statement did not specify the dates of the arrests but said they were part of "one of the most important preventive operations", triggered by "attacks on police" and a fire at a Saudi Aramco oil pipeline in Bahrain last year.

A key US ally and home to the US Fifth Fleet, Bahrain has drawn harsh criticism from international rights groups over its crackdown on dissent.

Dozens of Bahrainis have been jailed and stripped of citizenship since Arab Spring-inspired protests broke out in 2011.

Bahrain's parliament and king last year granted military courts jurisdiction to try civilians charged with "terrorism" -- a vaguely defined legal term.

The kingdom has also deported citizens whose nationalities had been revoked.

Near the olive grove where Christians believe Jesus agonised before his crucifixion, an American visitor spoke of a decision by US President Donald Trump some believe also holds spiritual importance.

Phillip Dunn, the 37-year-old pastor of an evangelical Christian church in the US state of South Carolina, said he saw Trump's declaration of Jerusalem as Israel's capital last month as part of biblical prophecy."Certainly this holds a lot of significance for people in that way. We believe Christ is going to return," Dunn, part of a group of around 50 American Southern Baptists visiting Jerusalem holy sites over the weekend, said before climbing back aboard a tour bus.

Trump's controversial declaration on December 6 will be back in the spotlight over the coming days with Vice President Mike Pence arriving Sunday night for talks with Israeli officials in Jerusalem.

Dunn and his fellow believers are key backers of Trump's move in the United States and part of the Christian evangelical community there that has become an important pillar of support for his Republican party.

Pence, who stood behind Trump as he made his Jerusalem announcement, is himself an evangelical Christian.

Dunn and others on the Jerusalem tour, planned before Trump's announcement, said they were pleased with his declaration because they consider it important to support Israel and affirm its claim that the entire city is its capital.

But there were also otherworldly considerations among the group.

Some evangelicals believe, based on interpretations of scripture, that firmly establishing Jerusalem as Israel's capital and establishing a new temple there could help lead to the second coming of Jesus.

Dunn and others on the trip said interpretations of Jerusalem's place in biblical prophecy vary too widely to provide a simple answer such as that one.

- 'A lot of mystery' -

Brett Burleson, a pastor at a church in Alabama, said "there's a lot of mystery to that, so I don't claim to know how it's all going to play out".

"We do recognise that this is a place where we believe the Lord Jesus himself will return and bring a peaceful end to human history," the 47-year-old said.

Jerusalem's status is perhaps the most sensitive issue in the decades-old Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Israel occupied and later annexed its eastern sector in the Six-Day War of 1967 in a move never recognised by the international community.

It sees the entire city as its capital, while the Palestinians view east Jerusalem as the capital of their future state.

Trump's declaration deeply angered the Palestinians, with president Mahmud Abbas cancelling plans to meet Pence during his visit, which had been set for late December before being postponed.

The declaration was partly the result of a long political debate in the United States, with a law passed calling for the embassy to be moved from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem in 1995.

It however allowed presidents to sign a waiver every six months to prevent the embassy move for national security reasons.

Trump again signed the waiver when declaring Jerusalem Israel's capital last month, but stressed he intended to move the embassy.

He also said Jerusalem's final borders and status would have to be negotiated, but Palestinians were unconvinced.

- 'Probably not' -

David Parsons, vice president of the International Christian Embassy based in Jerusalem, said he helped draft an earlier version of the embassy legislation while working for a pro-Israel lobbying firm in the United States.

"We have a large, broad movement worldwide that supports Israel on various motivations," Parsons said of the primarily evangelical Christian embassy.

"Some are motivated by biblical prophecy, but there's a broad array of views on biblical prophecy."

Zalman Shoval, a former Israeli ambassador to the United States, said Sunday that Israel has long reached out to US Christian groups for support.

Specifically mentioning evangelicals, Shoval said "we may not agree with everything anybody says about the future of Israel or the future of the country."

Some evangelicals believe Jews would eventually have to convert to Christianity.

"But we must look at the present situation," he told journalists.

"The present situation is that there is a very important body of people in America who believe -- honestly and genuinely believe -- in the future of the Jewish people and its place in the Jewish country in Israel."

Lewis Richerson, 37, a pastor from Louisiana on the Jerusalem tour, may be among those he had in mind.

His support for Trump's declaration was "primarily political" since backing Israel in part helps "promote democracy and freedom around the world."

Richerson said of the declaration: "Is that some type of biblical prophecy? Probably not."

US Vice President Mike Pence arrived in Israel on Sunday for a visit that will see him warmly welcomed by Israeli leaders but snubbed by the Palestinians, deeply angered by the White House's Jerusalem policy.

The visit, initially scheduled for December before being postponed, is the final leg of a trip that has included talks in Egypt and Jordan as well as a stop at a US military facility near the Syrian border.Controversy back home over a budget dispute that has led to a US government shutdown has trailed Pence, and he sought to blame Democrats for the impasse during a speech to troops at the military facility on Sunday.

Arab outrage over President Donald Trump's recognition of Jerusalem as Israel's capital on December 6 had prompted the cancellation of several planned meetings ahead of Pence's tour.

Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas is refusing to meet Pence because of the declaration, making his visit a rare one by a high-ranking US official not to include talks with the Palestinians.

He will meet Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday before addressing the country's parliament later in the day -- a speech that Israeli Arab lawmakers will boycott, calling Pence "dangerous and messianic".

On Tuesday, the devout Christian will visit Jerusalem's Western Wall, one of the holiest sites in Judaism. Trump became the first sitting US president to visit the site when he travelled to Jerusalem in May 2017.

- 'Soon re-engage'? -

The site is located in east Jerusalem, occupied by Israel in the 1967 Six-Day War and later annexed in a move never recognised by the international community.

The city's status is perhaps the most sensitive in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and the Palestinians' reaction to Trump's recognition was an illustration of the importance placed upon it.

Beyond refusing to meet Pence, Abbas has said the United States can no longer serve as mediator in Middle East peace talks and the Palestinians were planning a general strike on Tuesday to protest Trump's declaration.

On Sunday evening Netanyahu had a message for Abbas, addressing him in a statement using his Arabic nickname.

"Regarding peace, I have a message to Abu Mazen. There's no substitute to the American leadership in leading the diplomatic process," Netanyahu said.

"Whoever won't discuss peace with the Americans, doesn’t want peace," he added.

He also said he will discuss with Pence "two topics... peace and security".

Unrest since the announcement has left at least 17 Palestinians dead, most of them killed in clashes with Israeli forces. One Israeli has been killed in that time.

Pence, speaking at the military facility, said he hopes "the Palestinian Authority will soon re-engage".

Netanyahu appeared more interested in talking with Pence on other issues.

"We will discuss the efforts of the Trump administration to block Iran's aggression and the Iranian nuclear programme, and of course, advancing security and peace in the region," he said ahead of Sunday's cabinet meeting.

- 'Historic decision' -

Earlier Sunday, Jordan's King Abdullah II, a key US ally, voiced concern over Trump's Jerusalem recognition as Pence visited Amman.

"Jerusalem is key to Muslims and Christians as it is to Jews," he said. "It is key to peace in the region. And key to enabling Muslims to effectively fight some of the root causes of radicalisation."

Speaking in Amman, Pence called Trump's Jerusalem move a "historic decision" but said the United States respected Jordan's role as custodian of the city's holy sites.

"The United States of America remains committed, if the parties agree, to a two-state solution. We are committed to restarting the peace process, and Jordan does now and has always played a central role in facilitating peace in the region," Pence said.

The US move to recognise Jerusalem as Israel's capital broke with decades of international consensus that the city's status should be settled as part of a two-state peace deal between Israel and the Palestinians.

Israel claims all of Jerusalem as its capital, while the Palestinians see the eastern sector as the capital of their future state.

Israelis and Palestinians alike interpreted Trump's move as Washington taking Israel's side in the conflict -- a view reinforced by the White House's recent decision to withhold financing for the UN agency for Palestinian refugees.

The US vice president arrived in Jordan on Saturday evening from Egypt, where he met President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, a key Trump ally.

The leaders of both Egypt and Jordan, the only Arab states that have peace treaties with Israel, would be key players if US mediators ever manage to revive a stalled Israeli-Palestinian peace process, as Trump says he wants.

Sisi had urged the US president before his Jerusalem declaration "not to complicate the situation in the region by taking measures that jeopardise the chances of peace in the Middle East".

Turkish troops and tanks entered Syria on Sunday to push an offensive against Kurdish militia as rockets hit border towns in apparent retaliation and the United States urged Ankara to show restraint.

Turkey on Saturday launched operation "Olive Branch" seeking to oust from the Afrin region of northern Syria the Peoples' Protection Units (YPG) which Ankara considers a terror group.But the campaign risks further increasing tensions with Turkey's NATO ally Washington, which has supported the YPG in the fight against Islamic State (IS) jihadists and warned Ankara about distracting the focus from that fight.

In its first reaction to the offensive, the US State Department urged Turkey Sunday "to exercise restraint and ensure that its military operations remain limited in scope and duration and scrupulous to avoid civilian casualties".

"We call on all parties to remain focused on the central goal of defeating" IS, State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert said in a statement.

Turkish Prime Minister Binali Yildirim said troops crossed into YPG-controlled region in Syria at 0805 GMT, the Dogan news agency reported.

Thirty-two Turkish planes destroyed a total of 45 targets including ammunition dumps and refuges used by the YPG on the second day of the operation, the Turkish army said.

Turkish troops were advancing alongside forces from the Ankara-backed rebel Free Syrian Army (FSA) and were already five kilometres (three miles) inside Syria, state media said.

An AFP photographer saw more Turkish tanks lined up at the border waiting to cross into Syrian territory.

Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said in televised comments several villages had already been taken in the advance.

But a YPG spokesman claimed Turkish forces seeking to enter Afrin had been "blocked" and that it had hit two Turkish tanks.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said a total of 18 civilians had been killed so far in the two-day operation. Ankara denied any civilian casualties, with Cavusoglu accusing the YPG of sending out "nonsense propaganda and baseless lies".

- 'A very short time' -

In his first comments on the offensive since it began, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan expressed hope the "operation will be finished in a very short time" and vowed "we will not take a step back".

Following calls from some Turkish pro-Kurdish politicians for people to take to the streets, he warned that anyone protesting in Turkey against the operation would pay "a heavy price".

Police stopped demonstrations against the campaign taking place in the mainly Kurdish southeastern city of Diyarbakir and in Istanbul, making arrests, AFP correspondents said.

In a sign of the risks to Turkey, six rockets fired from Syria hit the Turkish border town of Reyhanli Sunday, killing one Syrian refugee and wounding 32 people, its mayor said.

Earlier, several rockets hit the Turkish border town of Kilis without causing fatalities.

The operation is Turkey's second major incursion into Syria during the seven-year civil war after the August 2016-March 2017 Euphrates Shield campaign in an area to the east of Afrin, against both the YPG and IS.

Turkey accuses the YPG of being the Syrian offshoot of the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) which has waged a rebellion in Turkey for more than three decades and is regarded as a terror group by Ankara and the EU and US.

Afrin is an enclave of YPG control, cut off from the longer strip of northern Syria that the group controls to the east, extending to the Iraqi border which has a US military presence.

Turkish Deputy Prime Minister Bekir Bozdag ruled out the risk of a clash with American forces, saying they were not present in the Afrin region.

Yildirim was quoted as saying that the Turkish forces aimed to create a security zone some 30 kilometres (18 miles) deep inside Syria.

- 'Brutal degradation' -

French Defence Minister Florence Parly said the fighting "must stop" as it could deter YPG fighters helping the international coalition against IS.

Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said France was calling the UN Security Council meeting as it was deeply worried by the "brutal degradation of the situation" in flashpoints like Afrin.

Crucial is the attitude of Russia, which has a military presence in the area and is also working with Turkey on a drive to end the civil war.

The Russian foreign ministry voiced concern and urged Turkey to show restraint, while the defence ministry said its troops were withdrawing from the Afrin area to ensure their security and prevent any "provocation".

The Turkish foreign ministry said it had informed the Syrian regime -- through its Istanbul consulate -- of the operation despite being at odds with Damascus throughout the civil war.

But the Syrian foreign ministry strongly denied this and President Bashar al-Assad slammed the offensive as "support for terrorism".

The number of Syrians who have died trying to flee their war-torn country into neighbouring Lebanon during a snowstorm has risen to at least 13, the United Nations said Saturday.

A group of Syrians, including children, had tried to enter neighbouring Lebanon late on Thursday through a smuggling route but were caught in a fierce storm.

The Lebanese army and civil defence said on Friday they had retrieved the bodies of 10 Syrians, including two children and six women.

But the toll has since increased.

Lisa Abou Khaled, a spokeswoman for the UN's refugee agency, said at least 13 Syrians were confirmed to have died in the incident.

"The victims were trying to cross an arduous and rugged passage in freezing temperatures," the UNHCR said in a statement.

"Others in the group, including a pregnant woman, were discovered in time and assisted by nearby residents and the Lebanese Armed Forces and Civil Defence to reach hospitals before they froze to death."

A Lebanese army source told AFP on Saturday that the toll had reached 14.

"The army retrieved a total of 12 bodies on Friday, and one person died at the hospital. Another body was found on Saturday, bringing the total to 14," the source said.

Lebanon, a country of four million, hosts just under a million Syrians who have sought refuge from the war raging in their neighbouring homeland since 2011.

Many live in informal tented settlements in the country's east and struggle to stay warm in the winter.

The UN's children's agency UNICEF said on Saturday it was distributing blankets, warm clothes and heating fuel.

"More children could be among the dead as residents in the area and the Lebanese authorities continue to look for people who are reportedly trapped in the mountainous in freezing temperatures and snow," a UNICEF statement said.

"The brutal wars have to stop and we all need to step up our generosity and assistance for the most affected children. We have no excuse. We cannot continue failing children!"

In 2015, Lebanese authorities introduced new restrictions to curb the number of Syrians entering the country.

Lebanon and Syria share a rocky 330-kilometre (205 mile) border with no official demarcation at several points.

US Vice President Mike Pence kicked off a trip to the Middle East on Saturday with a visit to Egypt, where he pledged firm US backing to President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi in the nation's fight against militants.
Pence said ties between the two countries had never been stronger after a period of "drifting apart" and that President Donald Trump sent his gratitude to Sisi for implementing economic reforms.

"We stand shoulder to shoulder with you in Egypt in the fight against terrorism," Pence said.

Sisi said the two men discussed ways to eliminate the "disease and cancer" of terrorism and called Trump a friend.

Pence's quick visit comes at the start of a three-country tour that also includes stops in Jordan and Israel. This is the highest-level visit from a US official to the region since December, when Trump recognised Jerusalem as Israel's capital.

That decision, which reversed decades of US policy and set in motion the process of moving the US embassy to Jerusalem from Tel Aviv, upset leaders in the Arab world and prompted Palestinians to reject the United States as a broker for peace.

Anger over Jerusalem decision

Pence, a conservative Christian who was one of the driving forces behind the move, and Sisi did not discuss the Jerusalem decision during their public remarks in front of reporters.

Egypt has faced security problems, including attacks by Islamic State militants in the North Sinai region. Trump has made the fight against Islamic State a top priority.

Upon arriving at the palace where Pence and Sisi met, reporters traveling with the vice president initially were not allowed to exit their van and enter the building. Eventually they were admitted and allowed to attend part of the meeting.

From Cairo, Pence heads to Jordan, where he will meet with King Abdullah, a close US ally. Abdullah warned against declaring Jerusalem as Israel's capital, saying it would have a dangerous impact on regional stability and obstruct US efforts to resume peace talks.

Many people in Jordan are descendants of Palestinian refugees whose families left after the creation of Israel in 1948.

Pence, whose wife, Karen, is accompanying him, will end his trip in Israel, where he will be warmly welcomed in the aftermath of Trump's decision. He plans to meet with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, address the Israeli legislature and visit the Western Wall.

Pence is not scheduled to meet Palestinian leaders. They were incensed by Trump’s decision on Jerusalem, which upended the longstanding US position that negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians must determine the city's status.

The Trump administration’s recent announcement that it was withholding about half of the aid it was due to give to a United Nations relief agency that serves the Palestinians raised questions about fledgling US efforts to revive Israeli-Palestinian peace talks and further undermined Arabs' faith that the United States can act as an impartial arbitrator.

Pence also plans to visit with US troops while he is in the region. US Vice President Mike Pence kicked off a trip to the Middle East on Saturday with a visit to
Egypt, where he pledged firm US backing to President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi in the nation's fight against militants.

'Shoulder to shoulder'

Pence said ties between the two countries had never been stronger after a period of "drifting apart" and that President Donald Trump sent his gratitude to Sisi for implementing economic reforms.

"We stand shoulder to shoulder with you in Egypt in the fight against terrorism," Pence said.

Sisi said the two men discussed ways to eliminate the "disease and cancer" of terrorism and called Trump a friend.

Pence's quick visit comes at the start of a three-country tour that also includes stops in Jordan and Israel. This is the highest-level visit from a US official to the region since December, when Trump recognised Jerusalem as Israel's capital.

That decision, which reversed decades of US policy and set in motion the process of moving the US embassy to Jerusalem from Tel Aviv, upset leaders in the Arab world and prompted Palestinians to reject the United States as a broker for peace.

Pence, a conservative Christian who was one of the driving forces behind the move, and Sisi did not discuss the Jerusalem decision during their public remarks in front of reporters.

Egypt has faced security problems, including attacks by Islamic State militants in the North Sinai region. Trump has made the fight against Islamic State a top priority.

Upon arriving at the palace where Pence and Sisi met, reporters traveling with the vice president initially were not allowed to exit their van and enter the building. Eventually they were admitted and allowed to attend part of the meeting.

From Cairo, Pence heads to Jordan, where he will meet with King Abdullah, a close US ally. Abdullah warned against declaring Jerusalem as Israel's capital, saying it would have a dangerous impact on regional stability and obstruct US efforts to resume peace talks.

Many people in Jordan are descendants of Palestinian refugees whose families left after the creation of Israel in 1948.

Pence, whose wife, Karen, is accompanying him, will end his trip in Israel, where he will be warmly welcomed in the aftermath of Trump's decision. He plans to meet with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, address the Israeli
legislature and visit the Western Wall.

Pence is not scheduled to meet Palestinian leaders. They were incensed by Trump’s decision on Jerusalem, which upended the longstanding US position that negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians must determine the city's status.

The Trump administration’s recent announcement that it was withholding about half of the aid it was due to give to a United Nations relief agency that serves the Palestinians raised questions about fledgling US efforts to revive Israeli-Palestinian peace talks and further undermined Arabs' faith that the United States can act as an impartial arbitrator.

Pence also plans to visit with US troops while he is in the region.

A young man and a woman have landed in the Ras Al Khaimah criminal court for exchanging their nude pictures, and having consensual sex out of wedlock.

As per court records, the case came to the fore when the 19-year-old man, an Asian, threatened to defame the 20-year-old woman, also an Asian, to post her nude pictures on social media if she severed her ties with him.

When alerted of the threat, the woman's mother lodged a complaint against him before the RAK Police. The cops immediately took action and detained the suspect, who later proved to be in relation with the woman's daughter.

The man was referred to the RAK public prosecution, which charged him with exchanging nude photos with the woman when she was still a minor, and trespassing her father's house.

He was also accused of having consensual sex with her out of the wedlock, and threatening to defame her by putting up her nude pictures on social network if she got married to any man other than him.

The public prosecution also charged the woman with exchanging her nude pictures with the suspect, having consensual sex with him the suspect out of wedlock, and assisting him to trespass her father's house.

The man, referred to the RAK criminal court, denied threatening to post the woman's pictures on social media.

He admitted to trespassing her father's house with her help, alleging that the woman was the one who started sending him her nude pictures on WhatsApp and told him that he could do the same.

The defendant told the court that he did have sex with the woman when she was still a minor with her consent on their first date, following which she asked him for another date.

The woman admitted to all the charges pressed against her.

The court honoured the request of the woman's defence lawyer, and ordered adjournment of the case to January 24 so that he has enough time to read the case file, and prepare his pleading.

"I wish to invite you to combat a plague across our Latin American region: the numerous cases of violent crimes against women, from beatings to rape to murder," the visiting pontiff told thousands in Trujillo's main colonial-era square.

Half of the 25 countries with the greatest number of murders of women are in Latin America, according to UN Women.

In Argentina, the pope's homeland, there were at least 254 murders of women in 2016 that authorities think were gender-related, which helped spark the online campaign #NotOneMore murder.

"There are so many cases of violence that stay silenced behind so many walls," Francis said, arousing cheers from the crowd. "I'm calling on you to fight against this source of suffering including legislation and a culture that rejects every type of violence."

The northwestern city Trujillo is still struggling to rebuild after deadly devastating floods one year ago.

More than 130 people were killed across Peru between January and April 2017 in heavy rains, floods and landslides fueled by the El Nino weather phenomenon, which also left at least 300,000 homeless. Hardest-hit was Peru's northern coastal region.

Francis acknowledged that many families still could not rebuild their homes after the floods -- then warned of the "storms" of organized crime.

The high crime rate means fewer educational and work opportunities, preventing young people "from building a future with dignity," Francis said.

The mass took place on a stretch of beach in Huanchaco, a town in Trujillo some 560 kilometers (350 miles) north of Lima. Huanchaco is popular with surfers and known for its distinctive reed watercraft known as "caballitos de totora."The pope then boarded his Popemobile to visit Trujillo's impoverished "Buenos Aires" neighborhood, which was especially hard hit by last April's flooding.

"We will see if the pope brings along some blessings. And if we can recover completely from everything lost in the floods. We need him to bring some mercy," said local resident Lidia Garcia.

As on Friday, Francis was accompanied by Peru's president, Pedro Pablo Kuczynski.

On Sunday he is slated to hold another beachside mass in Lima.

- 'Threatened' Amazon natives -

The visit is a change of pace after a politically charged first day in the South American country where the pope railed against "great business interests" for endangering the Amazon and its indigenous people.

And he lashed out at corruption in politics.

"There is so much damage done by this... thing that infects everything," Francis said. "And it's always the poorest and the environment that get the short end of the stick."

On Friday, he sounded a stark warning about the future of the rainforest and tribe members, saying they had "never been so threatened."

Bare-chested tribesmen, their bodies painted and their heads crowned with colorful feathers, danced and sang for the pope when he arrived in the Peruvian city of Puerto Maldonado.

Thousands of indigenous people had traveled to meet the pontiff from throughout the Amazon basin region of Peru, Brazil and Bolivia.

Pope Francis, 81, arrived Thursday afternoon in Peru, the second and last leg of a week-long South American visit.

During the first part of his visit, in Chile, Francis highlighted the plight of vulnerable immigrants, offered an apology to victims of sexual abuse by Catholic priests, prayed with survivors of Augusto Pinochet's brutal dictatorship, and called for protection of Chile's persecuted indigenous people.

Pope Francis was set Saturday to hold a huge outdoor mass in a coastal region of Peru struggling to rebuild in the wake of devastating floods last year.

His visit to Trujillo province, some 560 kilometers (350 miles) north of Lima, will be a change of pace after a politically charged first day in the Latin American country where he railed against "great business interests" for endangering the Amazon and its tribes.

The mass will take place on a wide swathe of beach able to accommodate 500,000 people, in the historic town of Huanchaco popular with surfers and known for its distinctive reed watercraft known as "caballitos de totora."

Many had already begun gathering there Friday night in anticipation of the pontiff, despite persistent drizzle.

He will then go to the town's poor "Buenos Aires" neighborhood which was especially hard hit by flooding last April.

More than 130 people were killed across Peru in heavy rains, floods and landslides fuelled by the El Nino weather phenomenon between January and April 2017, which also left at least 300,000 homeless.

The leader of the Catholic church will later preside over a ceremony in the town square before some 35,000 followers and meet with members of the clergy.

"We are waiting to see if the Pope brings blessings and can fix everything we have lost", said resident Lidia Garcia.

On Friday, he had sounded a stark warning about the future of the rainforest and tribe members, saying they had "never been so threatened."

Bare-chested tribesmen, their bodies painted and their heads crowned with colorful feathers, danced and sang for the pope when he arrived in the Peruvian city of Puerto Maldonado.

Thousands of indigenous people had traveled to meet the pontiff from throughout the Amazon basin region of Peru, Brazil and Bolivia.

Pope Francis, 81, arrived Thursday afternoon in Peru, the second and last leg of a week-long South American visit.

During the first part of his visit, in Chile, Francis highlighted the plight of vulnerable immigrants, offered an apology to victims of sexual abuse by Catholic priests, prayed with survivors of Augusto Pinochet's brutal dictatorship, and called for protection of Chile's persecuted indigenous communities.

Before his visit to Chile, the US-based NGO Bishop Accountability said that almost 80 members of the Roman Catholic clergy had been accused of sexually abusing children in Chile since 2000.

At the pope's first public mass in Santiago on Tuesday, he faced protests over the church's handling of decades of sexual abuse.

Pope Francis was set Saturday to hold a huge outdoor mass in a coastal region of Peru struggling to rebuild in the wake of devastating floods last year.

His visit to Trujillo province, some 560 kilometers (350 miles) north of Lima, will be a change of pace after a politically charged first day in the Latin American country where he railed against "great business interests" for endangering the Amazon and its tribes.

The mass will take place on a wide swathe of beach able to accommodate 500,000 people, in the historic town of Huanchaco popular with surfers and known for its distinctive reed watercraft known as "caballitos de totora."

Many had already begun gathering there Friday night in anticipation of the pontiff, despite persistent drizzle.

He will then go to the town's poor "Buenos Aires" neighborhood which was especially hard hit by flooding last April.

More than 130 people were killed across Peru in heavy rains, floods and landslides fuelled by the El Nino weather phenomenon between January and April 2017, which also left at least 300,000 homeless.

The leader of the Catholic church will later preside over a ceremony in the town square before some 35,000 followers and meet with members of the clergy.

"We are waiting to see if the Pope brings blessings and can fix everything we have lost", said resident Lidia Garcia.

On Friday, he had sounded a stark warning about the future of the rainforest and tribe members, saying they had "never been so threatened."

Bare-chested tribesmen, their bodies painted and their heads crowned with colorful feathers, danced and sang for the pope when he arrived in the Peruvian city of Puerto Maldonado.

Thousands of indigenous people had traveled to meet the pontiff from throughout the Amazon basin region of Peru, Brazil and Bolivia.

Pope Francis, 81, arrived Thursday afternoon in Peru, the second and last leg of a week-long South American visit.

During the first part of his visit, in Chile, Francis highlighted the plight of vulnerable immigrants, offered an apology to victims of sexual abuse by Catholic priests, prayed with survivors of Augusto Pinochet's brutal dictatorship, and called for protection of Chile's persecuted indigenous communities.

Before his visit to Chile, the US-based NGO Bishop Accountability said that almost 80 members of the Roman Catholic clergy had been accused of sexually abusing children in Chile since 2000.

At the pope's first public mass in Santiago on Tuesday, he faced protests over the church's handling of decades of sexual abuse.

Prime Minister Abdullah Ensour on Tuesday said that the government is currently engaged in talks with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) over a new programme to stimulate economic growth.  

Ensour added that the expected deal with the IMF, the Extended Fund Facility (EFF), follows the “success” of the first programme, which was of “financial nature”. 

In August last year, Jordan and IMF concluded the three-year Stand-By Arrangement (SBA), which gave the Kingdom access to around $2 billion. 

The premier’s remarks came Tuesday during the Lower House’s oversight session in response to MPs’ queries about the government’s economic policies.

Ensour added that donor countries meeting in London for the “Supporting Syria and the Region Conference”, in February, linked their financial support to Jordan with economic stimulation programmes with the World Bank and the IMF.

“This is what we are doing now through ongoing meetings to arrive at an agreed upon programme,” Ensour said. 

The IMF and the government have recently started a second round of discussions over a new assistance programme to help the Kingdom implement medium-term structural reforms and to enable Jordan to benefit from the fund’s financing tools.

The EFF would focus on growth, job creation and improving the Kingdom’s business environment to be more attractive to investors. 
An informed source told The Jordan Times on Tuesday that a delegation from the Finance Ministry headed by Minster of Finance Omar Malhas were expected in Washington soon to continue negotiations over the new programme with officials at the IMF headquarters. 

The source said talks could be concluded this month as the two sides are currently discussing the size of the funding. Following the conclusion of negotiations, the IMF mission to Jordan would refer the programme to the fund’s executive board for approval. 

Former IMF mission chief to Jordan Kristina Kostial told The Jordan Times late last year that the size of the funding expected under the EFF would be less than the $2 billion in the form of low-cost loans under the SBA. 
Also during the session, Interior Minister Salameh Hammad said that trucks laden with Jordanian fruits and vegetables began some days ago entering the Iraqi market through Kuwait.

Hammad added that Jordan had to look for new trade routes after the closure of borders with Iraq and Syria due to war and unrest there. 

Minister of Industry and Trade Maha Ali said that the Jordanian exports to Iraq are exempted from customs fees according to the free trade agreement the two countries.

In a statement to The Jordan Times, Ali was quoted as saying that the ministry is following up with the Iraqis on news reports saying that the latter have imposed a 5 per cent customs fees on Jordanian exports. 

A 36-year-old man has been charged in a Dubai court after he allegedly sneaked into a room annexed to a mosque and molested the mu'adhin's (one who recites the call for prayer) wife as she slept.

Public prosecution records show the Pakistani man took advantage of the fact that the woman's husband, a mosque mu'adhin, had just gone for dawn prayers, to go to his room and molest the wife, kissing and touching her face.

He denied charges of molestation and trespassing into others' property when he appeared at the Court of First Instance. The incident took place in December last year in Al Rafaa.

The woman said her husband went around 5.15am to the mosque to lead the call for prayer. "While I was sleeping, I felt someone kissing me on my forehead and touching my face. I thought then it was my husband. But at that very moment, I heard the voice of my husband leading the prayer in the mosque. I then opened my eyes to see the defendant getting close to kiss me. He ran as I screamed in panic," the wife told the prosecutor.

Her husband said after he went for the dawn prayer, he spotted the defendant at the mosque around 5.30am. "He was still there when the prayer was over. When I went to my room in the mosque, I saw my wife was shaking in fear and in a state of shock. She told me a man entered the room, kissed her and touched her face. She said she could identify the man.

"I went back right away to the mosque and confronted the accused. He confessed it was true and begged me to forgive him. He begged for mercy and asked me not to call the police."

During public prosecution investigation, the defendant admitted he entered the room and kissed the sleeping woman on the forehead, claiming he left without drawing any attention.

The woman identified the accused three times at the police station.

The court is expected to pronounce a verdict on February 18.

The Dubai Police rescued a family of four from a boat that drifted into the canal near Business Bay Bridge in Dubai. 

Lt Col Ali Abdullah Al Qassaybi Al Naqbi, head of maritime rescue at the Dubai Police, said that one of the injured stuck in the boat was rushed to the nearest ambulance centre.

Al Naqbi pointed out that the incident took place at 8:00pm on Saturday. The marine rescue team in cooperation with the naval and police officers of Port Police swung into action and reached the scene immediately. They found that the boat had run into shallow waters below the Business Bay Bridge.

He added that the rescue team took steps to ensure the safety of the family. The team members went near the boat and found one of the victims wounded. They shifted him to the nearest ambulance centre where he was given first aid. The team also pulled out the boat from the waters.

Al Naqbi underlined that the boat drifted into the shallow waters because it did not use the official route located below the bridge. Instead, it used the corridor located at the far right of the bridge when the waves were strong.  

He called on the boat and maritime transport captains to take care and practice caution when sailing. They should always check the weather forecast before they hit the waves and ensure that they have all the safety devices with them, he added. Al Naqbi also said that it was important to focus on the course of the water during the sail.

He urged the public to contact the Dubai Police Operations Room on 999 in the event of an emergency, and to describe the location appropriately so that the marine teams can respond quickly.

The UAE has climbed to the 32nd place on the 2018 Henley Passport Index, after signing a visa-waiver agreement with China. The UAE passport now offers holders visa-free travel to 134 countries, up from 121 countries in 2017. As of last Tuesday, UAE nationals can travel to China without a visa, following the signing of a memorandum of understanding by the two governments exempting UAE nationals from obtaining pre-entry visas for stays of up to 30 days.

The agreement came into effect one week after the launch of the 2018 Henley Passport Index. The UAE passport has risen by an impressive six places year-on-year and by 29 places over the past decade, the biggest historical climb of any passport in the world.

Performance of countries in the MENA region remains highly varied

The UAE's success is linked to the fact that, between 1999 and 2018, visa restrictions on Emirati citizens have been lifted by countries such as New Zealand, Argentina, Chile, Ukraine, and now China, as well as by those in Europe's Schengen Area. Within the wider GCC region, all member countries significantly improved their positions in 2018. Kuwait moved up to 58th position, with visa-free access to 83 countries, and Bahrain climbed to 63rd place, offering its citizens access to 75 countries. Oman (65th) and Saudi Arabia (67th) followed closely behind, with visa-free access to 71 and 69 countries, respectively.

Commenting on the UAE's latest climb on the index, Marco Gantenbein, managing partner of Henley & Partners Dubai and Head of Middle East, says, "This development re-affirms the UAE and China's thriving partnership. Emiratis' exemption from pre-entry visa to China will reflect positively on tourism, trade and investment and further augment the economic and commercial relations between the two countries. The UAE's continued efforts to nurture its cooperation and engagement with its international counterparts, particularly with strong emerging markets such as China, will positively impact the nation's economic development as well as ensure sustained growth in the region."

A construction worker who was left completely paralysed after a wall collapsed on him while on duty has been awarded Dh1 million in damages. The Abu Dhabi Appeal Court ordered two workers accused of causing permanent injuries to the Asian worker to pay him the compensation after a medical report showed that the man suffered a broken spinal cord when the incident happened at a construction site in Abu Dhabi.

Official court documents stated that one worker jokingly pushed the other to the newly built wall. The wall, which was not firm, suddenly collapsed at the victim who was sitting nearby while having his lunch.

A medical report said the Asian worker suffered a broken spinal cord and injuries in other body parts that resulted in 100 per cent paralysis.

A supplementary forensic report said the victim suffered injuries that caused 100 per cent permanent disabilities in his body. According to the medical report, in addition to body paralysis, the victim's inability to control urine and puss was also 100 per cent. The report said the worker also suffered from impotence due to the incident.

Prosecutors had charged the two workers with causing the accident that grievously injured the Asian man.

Officers also demanded that the worker be compensated for the damages because he was unable to do anything for himself and he was the sole bread winner for his wife, children and parents back home.

The two workers had admitted to causing the collapse of the wall while playing but stressed that they didn't intend to injure their colleague. The Court of First Instance had fined each of the men Dh5,000 and ordered them to pay Dh200,000 in damages after they were found guilty of causing injuries to the worker.

Prosecutors then challenged the compensation payout at the appellate court.

Hundreds of right-wing demonstrators crowded a main square at Rotterdam's central station Saturday to protest what they describe as the "discrimination against ordinary Dutch citizens" in favour of immigrants and Muslims.

The protest by around 700 right-wing supporters comes as Dutch political parties gear up for local government elections in March, with issues such as immigration and integration again expected to feature prominently among its 13 million illegible voters.

"The Netherlands is our country, it's not (Prime Minister) Mark Rutte's country," populist Dutch politician Geert Wilders, who led the demonstration, told the protesters.

"We live here, not in Morocco, we don't live in Turkey or in Saudi Arabia, but in Rotterdam, in the Netherlands," said Wilders.

"Here it's our rules that count. I want to tell you that the Netherlands is not an Islamic country, do you agree?" Wilders said to loud applause, speaking through a megaphone and sporting his trademark peroxide hairdo.

He left the demonstration a short while later after safety concerns when his vehicle became boxed in by a throng of supporters and journalists.

Wilders, 54, is often called the "best protected" man in the country and lives under 24-hour security.

His anti-Islam views have seen him receive death threats including from terror groups such as the Islamic State group and Al-Qaeda.

He is currently appealing a 2016 conviction for discrimination against Moroccans in a speech at a 2014 election rally.

Many protesters on Saturday waved Dutch flags and carried placards saying "Stop the Islamisation of Europe" and "Keep the Dutch culture, traditions, norms and values!"

Police -- who were out in force -- formed a line between right-wing demonstrators and a handful of anti-demonstrators led by two MPs of the leftist Denk Party, which draws its support mainly from Turkish and Moroccan communities.

"This (Wilders' message) is a message of hatred and division and we're against it. We have a message of unity and solidary," Denk leader Tunahan Kuzu told AFP.

Wilders's PVV will compete in around 30 of the 335 local governments in the March 21 vote, with the party battling to find candidates to represent it in other local constituencies.

The PVV, however, will compete in Rotterdam, where it will face-off against Kuzu's Denk party, among others.

Activists blocked roads and clashed with police in Honduras as part of nationwide protests against the contested re-election of President Juan Orlando Hernandez.

Dozens of people have been killed and hundreds jailed since Hernandez was declared the winner of the November 26 run-off election—after a three week stretch of often- interrupted ballot counting that stoked tensions and sparked accusations of fraud in the Central American country.

The left-wing Alliance in Opposition against the Dictatorship is heading a protest campaign insisting that the election was stolen from its candidate, former TV anchor Salvador Nasrallah.

The opposition called for a “national strike” on Saturday to block the country’s main roads ahead of the start of the president’s new term in office on January 27.

The government deployed police and soldiers to confront protesters.

One demonstrator was shot dead yesterday, opposition leader and former president Manuel Zelaya told AFP, identifying the victim as Anselmo Villareal, 60.

Seven other demonstrators were detained and two police were hurt, police spokesman Jair Meza said.

A military spokesman, Lieutenant Jose Coello, told AFP that some highways had been blocked “but they are being cleared in a peaceful manner.”

Coello said police confiscated tires, presumably to be set ablaze, that  protesters were carrying in their vehicles.

Protesters blocked the country’s main highway between Tegucigalpa and San Pedro Sula at a point about 100 kilometers north of the capital, local media reported.

In Tegucigalpa, police fired tear gas at protesters trying to block a road and burn tires. The demonstrators responded by hurling rocks.

Hernandez has implicit backing from the United States, which is pouring millions of dollars into Honduras and neighboring Guatemala and El Salvador to improve security conditions there.

Those three countries, collectively known as Central America’s “Northern Triangle,” are the biggest source of undocumented migrants heading to the United States.

"I wish to invite you to combat a plague across our Latin American region: the numerous cases of violent crimes against women, from beatings to rape to murder," the visiting pontiff told thousands in Trujillo's main colonial-era square.

Half of the 25 countries with the greatest number of murders of women are in Latin America, according to UN Women.

In Argentina, the pope's homeland, there were at least 254 murders of women in 2016 that authorities think were gender-related, which helped spark the online campaign #NotOneMore murder.

"There are so many cases of violence that stay silenced behind so many walls," Francis said, arousing cheers from the crowd. "I'm calling on you to fight against this source of suffering including legislation and a culture that rejects every type of violence."

The northwestern city Trujillo is still struggling to rebuild after deadly devastating floods one year ago.

More than 130 people were killed across Peru between January and April 2017 in heavy rains, floods and landslides fueled by the El Nino weather phenomenon, which also left at least 300,000 homeless. Hardest-hit was Peru's northern coastal region.

Francis acknowledged that many families still could not rebuild their homes after the floods -- then warned of the "storms" of organized crime.

The high crime rate means fewer educational and work opportunities, preventing young people "from building a future with dignity," Francis said.

The mass took place on a stretch of beach in Huanchaco, a town in Trujillo some 560 kilometers (350 miles) north of Lima. Huanchaco is popular with surfers and known for its distinctive reed watercraft known as "caballitos de totora."The pope then boarded his Popemobile to visit Trujillo's impoverished "Buenos Aires" neighborhood, which was especially hard hit by last April's flooding.

"We will see if the pope brings along some blessings. And if we can recover completely from everything lost in the floods. We need him to bring some mercy," said local resident Lidia Garcia.

As on Friday, Francis was accompanied by Peru's president, Pedro Pablo Kuczynski.

On Sunday he is slated to hold another beachside mass in Lima.

- 'Threatened' Amazon natives -

The visit is a change of pace after a politically charged first day in the South American country where the pope railed against "great business interests" for endangering the Amazon and its indigenous people.

And he lashed out at corruption in politics.

"There is so much damage done by this... thing that infects everything," Francis said. "And it's always the poorest and the environment that get the short end of the stick."

On Friday, he sounded a stark warning about the future of the rainforest and tribe members, saying they had "never been so threatened."

Bare-chested tribesmen, their bodies painted and their heads crowned with colorful feathers, danced and sang for the pope when he arrived in the Peruvian city of Puerto Maldonado.

Thousands of indigenous people had traveled to meet the pontiff from throughout the Amazon basin region of Peru, Brazil and Bolivia.

Pope Francis, 81, arrived Thursday afternoon in Peru, the second and last leg of a week-long South American visit.

During the first part of his visit, in Chile, Francis highlighted the plight of vulnerable immigrants, offered an apology to victims of sexual abuse by Catholic priests, prayed with survivors of Augusto Pinochet's brutal dictatorship, and called for protection of Chile's persecuted indigenous people.

A coalition of Arab parties in the Israeli parliament said Saturday it will boycott a speech by visiting US Vice President Mike Pence, calling him "dangerous and messianic".

Pence, who arrived in Cairo on Saturday to start his first Middle East tour, travels Sunday on to Jordan and to Israel later the same day.

He is scheduled to address the Knesset, Israel's parliament, on Monday.

The visit by Pence, a devout Christian, comes amid widespread anger in the Arab world over a December 6 decision by US President Donald Trump to recognise Jerusalem as Israel's capital.

His trip had originally been scheduled for December but was postponed because of the furore over the Jerusalem decision, which broke with decades of international diplomacy.

The Palestinians have frozen contacts with the Trump administration and have said Pence would not meet any Palestinian leaders.

"He is a dangerous man with a messianic vision that includes the destruction of the entire region," Israeli Arab parliamentarian Ayman Odeh said of Pence.

Odeh heads the United List of Arab parties, the third largest political group in parliament with 13 seats.

"He comes here as the emissary of an even more dangerous man, a political pyromaniac, racist and misogynist who must be prevented from taking control of our region," Odeh said, referring to Trump.

"The entire Arab List will boycott his speech."

Arab Israelis are descendants of Palestinians who stayed on when Israel was created in 1948. They are Israeli citizens and represent 17.5 percent of the population. 

Prime Minister Abdullah Ensour on Tuesday said that the government is currently engaged in talks with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) over a new programme to stimulate economic growth.  

Ensour added that the expected deal with the IMF, the Extended Fund Facility (EFF), follows the “success” of the first programme, which was of “financial nature”. 

In August last year, Jordan and IMF concluded the three-year Stand-By Arrangement (SBA), which gave the Kingdom access to around $2 billion. 

The premier’s remarks came Tuesday during the Lower House’s oversight session in response to MPs’ queries about the government’s economic policies.

Ensour added that donor countries meeting in London for the “Supporting Syria and the Region Conference”, in February, linked their financial support to Jordan with economic stimulation programmes with the World Bank and the IMF.

“This is what we are doing now through ongoing meetings to arrive at an agreed upon programme,” Ensour said. 

The IMF and the government have recently started a second round of discussions over a new assistance programme to help the Kingdom implement medium-term structural reforms and to enable Jordan to benefit from the fund’s financing tools.

The EFF would focus on growth, job creation and improving the Kingdom’s business environment to be more attractive to investors. 
An informed source told The Jordan Times on Tuesday that a delegation from the Finance Ministry headed by Minster of Finance Omar Malhas were expected in Washington soon to continue negotiations over the new programme with officials at the IMF headquarters. 

The source said talks could be concluded this month as the two sides are currently discussing the size of the funding. Following the conclusion of negotiations, the IMF mission to Jordan would refer the programme to the fund’s executive board for approval. 

Former IMF mission chief to Jordan Kristina Kostial told The Jordan Times late last year that the size of the funding expected under the EFF would be less than the $2 billion in the form of low-cost loans under the SBA. 
Also during the session, Interior Minister Salameh Hammad said that trucks laden with Jordanian fruits and vegetables began some days ago entering the Iraqi market through Kuwait.

Hammad added that Jordan had to look for new trade routes after the closure of borders with Iraq and Syria due to war and unrest there. 

Minister of Industry and Trade Maha Ali said that the Jordanian exports to Iraq are exempted from customs fees according to the free trade agreement the two countries.

In a statement to The Jordan Times, Ali was quoted as saying that the ministry is following up with the Iraqis on news reports saying that the latter have imposed a 5 per cent customs fees on Jordanian exports. 

Russian-led peace talks on Syria will be held Jan. 30 in the Black Sea resort of Sochi, Russia's chief negotiator Aleksandr Lavrentyev said Saturday.

Russia, a steadfast supporter of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, is set to co-host the summit with regime ally Iran and rebel backer Turkey with the aim of setting up a new constitution for post-war Syria.

Organizers had said earlier that the peace talks were planned for January 29 and 30, but Lavrentyev said that the participants would arrive on Jan. 29 and "the forum itself will take place on January 30."

Diplomats from Russia, Turkey and Iran have been holding discussions on how to organize the talks behind closed-doors in a Sochi hotel, Russian news agencies reported.

"I consider the meeting went well. We managed to agree on lists of participants of the forum," Lavrentyev said.

He said invitations would be sent within a few days, quoted by RIA Novosti news agency.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said at a press conference in New York Friday that Moscow had invited around 1,500 representatives of the Syrian people "including sheikhs, tribal leaders and representatives of civil society."

The talks will come after the latest round of U.N.-sponsored negotiations in Geneva ended in failure in December.

"We want to launch the process of political settlement in order to breath life into the Geneva process," Lavrentyev said.

The United Nations itself will host a new round of peace talks on Syria next week in Vienna.

The war has displaced millions of people and is estimated to have claimed the lives of at least 340,000 people since 2011.

Moscow said it hopes the U.N. will send its special envoy on Syria, Staffan de Mistura, to the Sochi forum.

He said that the United States was also expected to attend as an observer.

The January talks were announced during negotiations in Kazakhstan in December sponsored by powerbrokers Russia, Turkey and Iran. A joint statement said the congress would include "all segments of Syrian society".

Moscow had earlier said talks would be held in Sochi in November last year. Turkey said Russia had postponed the event because it met with a cool reception from Ankara and its Western allies, but Russia said the date had not been officially announced.

The airport serving the Libyan capital resumed flights on Saturday following a five-day suspension after deadly clashes around the facility that also damaged planes on the tarmac.

Lotfi Khalil, the director general of Mitiga airport on the eastern outskirts of Tripoli, said services resumed with Buraq Air flying to the eastern city of Tobruk and Libyan Airlines leaving for Tunis.

One local carrier, state-owned Afriqiyah Airways, however, has yet to resume operations because its planes were damaged in Monday's fighting in which at least 20 people were killed, he told AFP.

Since the closure, flights had been diverted to Misrata, a city 200 kilometres (120 miles) east of the capital.

Mitiga airport, a former military air base, was evacuated on Monday after militiamen attacked it in an attempt to free detainees at a jail there.

The health ministry of Libya's UN-backed Government of National Accord (GNA) said 20 people were killed and 63 wounded in the violence.

The GNA condemned what it called a "premeditated" attack by gunmen trying to free "terrorists" belonging to the Islamic State jihadist group and Al-Qaeda.

Mitiga has been a civilian airport since Tripoli's main international airport was badly damaged in fighting between rival militias in mid-2014.

Libya has been wracked by chaos since the 2011 uprising that toppled and killed long-time dictator Moamer Kadhafi, with rival authorities and militias battling for control of its oil riches.

Around 500 Syrian fighters graduated on Saturday from a U.S.-led training course aimed at establishing a controversial "border security force" in the country's north.

Last week, the U.S.-led coalition battling Daesh (ISIS) announced it had begun forming a 30,000-strong security force to patrol territory captured from Daesh.

About half its fighters would hail from the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), the alliance of Kurdish and Arab fighters that has emerged as Washington's best ally against extremists, and the rest would be new recruits.

On Saturday, a batch of around 500 fighters marked their completion of the nearly three-week training programme at a ceremony near Syria's northeastern city of Hasakeh.

Dressed in military fatigues, the graduates stood in neat rows and took an oath to protect the country's borders "against all attacks and threats".

Trainers from the SDF and U.S.-led coalition looked on, with pistols strapped to their waists or thighs.

"This is the second (graduating) class of the Border Security Force. They're made up of every demographic in the area," said Kani Ahmad, who headed the training.

The first class graduated on Friday.

The BSF would be deployed from northeast Syria, throughout the Kurdish-controlled north across to the northwestern province of Idlib, he said.

"Their mission is to protect the border, especially threats by Turkey and its mercenaries because we're being threatened," Ahmad added.

Turkey vehemently opposes the creation of the border force because it considers the SDF's Kurdish component -- the People's Protection Units (YPG) -- a "terrorist" group.

The BSF's unveiling prompted an outcry from Ankara, whose escalating threats to attack YPG-held territory on Saturday culminated in Turkish air strikes inside Syria.

The force has also been denounced by Damascus and Tehran, as well as Syria's mainstream opposition.

After completing the 20-day course, graduates would go on to receive more specialised training, officials at the graduation said.

"I'm happy I finished this training," said 21-year-old border guard Jamal Issa, who hails from the town of Kobane near the Turkish border.

"We learned how to use light and heavy weapons, deal with mines and bombs, and first aid," Issa told AFP in Kurdish.

Amer al-Ali, an Arab fighter from the town of Tal Abyad, also along the frontier, said he began fighting alongside the SDF three months ago and was glad to be switching to border monitoring.

"The trainers were from the coalition and had a lot of experience. We learned a lot of tactics on fighting, defence, and attack," he said.

He and his fellow graduates broke out into the Middle Eastern line dance known as the dabkeh and cheered, "Long live the Syrian Democratic Forces!"

Since announcing the plan, the Pentagon has insisted that the BSF is not meant to be an "army" or conventional border force but would primarily seek to prevent a Daesh resurgence in the area.

The number of Syrians who have died trying to flee their war-torn country into neighbouring Lebanon during a snowstorm has risen to at least 13, the United Nations said Saturday.

A group of Syrians, including children, had tried to enter neighbouring Lebanon late on Thursday through a smuggling route but were caught in a fierce storm.

The Lebanese army and civil defence said on Friday they had retrieved the bodies of 10 Syrians, including two children and six women.

But the toll has since increased.

Lisa Abou Khaled, a spokeswoman for the UN's refugee agency, said at least 13 Syrians were confirmed to have died in the incident.

"The victims were trying to cross an arduous and rugged passage in freezing temperatures," the UNHCR said in a statement.

"Others in the group, including a pregnant woman, were discovered in time and assisted by nearby residents and the Lebanese Armed Forces and Civil Defence to reach hospitals before they froze to death."

A Lebanese army source told AFP on Saturday that the toll had reached 14.

"The army retrieved a total of 12 bodies on Friday, and one person died at the hospital. Another body was found on Saturday, bringing the total to 14," the source said.

Lebanon, a country of four million, hosts just under a million Syrians who have sought refuge from the war raging in their neighbouring homeland since 2011.

Many live in informal tented settlements in the country's east and struggle to stay warm in the winter.

The UN's children's agency UNICEF said on Saturday it was distributing blankets, warm clothes and heating fuel.

"More children could be among the dead as residents in the area and the Lebanese authorities continue to look for people who are reportedly trapped in the mountainous in freezing temperatures and snow," a UNICEF statement said.

"The brutal wars have to stop and we all need to step up our generosity and assistance for the most affected children. We have no excuse. We cannot continue failing children!"

In 2015, Lebanese authorities introduced new restrictions to curb the number of Syrians entering the country.

Lebanon and Syria share a rocky 330-kilometre (205 mile) border with no official demarcation at several points.

Film-maker Claude Lanzmann has sold 112 passionate love letters sent to him by the legendary French feminist Simone de Beauvoir, Christie's auction house said Friday.

The director of the acclaimed Holocaust documentary "Shoah" said he has been forced to part with the correspondence because of a "scandalous" French inheritance law which means that they must go to her family on his death.

The letters, which are filled with the "mad passion" the couple shared during their seven-year affair in the 1950s, have never been published.

They were bought by Yale University, which already holds de Beauvoir's manuscripts and personal archives.

"I never planned for these letters to come out or be published," said 93-year-old Lanzmann, who was the secretary of de Beauvoir's long-term lover, the philosopher and playwright Jean-Paul Sartre.

The golden couple of French mid-20th century intellectual life had a famously open relationship, and enjoyed -- and endured -- a number of similar love triangles.

Lanzmann, who was 18 years de Beauvoir's junior, fell in love with her while he was editing "Les Temps Modernes", the ground-breaking review she and Sartre founded after World War II, which the film-maker still heads.

Agnes Poirier, author of "Left Bank", a new book about how "the ideas that shaped the modern world" were formed in the French capital during the intellectual tumult of the 1940s, said Lanzmann was the only man that de Beauvoir lived with.

"She and Sartre always kept separate apartments, but she let Lanzmann move in with her. He was about 26 she was 44 when the affair started, and he always said was she a 'grande amoureuse', a very passionate lover," she said.

- Angered by affair -

"After the age of 40 de Beauvoir thought she was not desirable anymore but she had a second youth with him," Poirier said -- and the author of the "The Second Sex" lived it "like a rebirth".

Poirier said that it had been always rumoured that Lanzmann "seduced her for a bet, or at least boasted that he could steal a kiss," but said that there was no doubting the intensity of their love.

"They had two little desks and they would work together in the mornings, then in the afternoons she would go and write with Sartre."

Just as with Sartre, it was an open relationship "but de Beauvoir took it badly when she discovered that Lanzmann had had an affair he didn't tell her about."

"She wasn't judgemental, it was just the fact that he didn't tell her that annoyed her," the writer added.

According to Yale's library, which for now is only making the letters available in its reading room, most were written while de Beauvoir was travelling with Sartre on their headline-making visits to Russia, China, Japan and Cuba.

Lanzmann railed against the French law which he said had forced him to sell the letters to Yale, saying it was crazy that it "states that the contents of the letters did not belong to the person they were addressed to."

However, he said he had the right "to pass them on in the hope that the purchaser can, if not publish them, then at least conserve them and make them available to historians and researchers."

The top American university can "now be proud of having all of her letters to me", which Lanzmann called "an exceptional, passionate correspondence".

Christie's auction house which arranged the private sale did not reveal how much the letters had been sold for.

Hollywood heavyweight Will Smith says he's now hooked on tennis after being courtside at the Australian Open to see Nick Kyrgios topple Jo-Wilfried Tsonga in a Grand Slam classic.

The "Men in Black" star was on the edge of his seat as Australian hope Kyrgios beat the former finalist 7-6 (7/5), 4-6, 7-6 (8/6), 7-6 (7/5) in a spectacular night match on Friday.

"This match last night was CRAZY!! @klnkyrg1os vs @tsongaofficiel ... WOW! I haven’t been to many Tennis matches. But, Now... I’m pretty sure I’m hooked!" he said on Instagram Saturday.

Smith has 5.4 million Instagram followers and his post had got 227,000 likes in barely two hours.

Kyrgios is huge fan of the actor, producer and comedian and admitted after the match he was a bit star-struck when he realised he was watching.

"No joke, he's like my favourite actor. I get asked if one person were acting your life, I'd always pick him," said the 22-year-old, seeded 17 at Melbourne Park.

"It was surreal seeing him. You know, I was talking to him in the third set. I kept looking at him. I was like, 'I got to break the ice, I got to say something'."

Asked what he said, he replied: "I said, I watched a load of your movies a bunch of times. It was pretty cringe, but it broke the ice."

The pair met afterwards and had their picture taken, and Kyrgios was impressed.

"He was really nice. I met him after the match. He was really genuine," he said.

South Africa's ruling ANC party said Saturday that it "must act decisively" to rebuild its reputation, as local media reported that President Jacob Zuma could soon be forced to leave office.

Zuma has been under growing pressure to resign since he was replaced as head of the African National Congress (ANC) in December by his deputy Cyril Ramaphosa.

Zuma's presidency has been engulfed by corruption scandals and a weakening economy, with the party losing public support ahead of next year's general election.

Ramaphosa's supporters are keen for him to take over as president and try to revive the economy before the election, when the ANC could lose its grip on power for the first time since the end of apartheid.

"The ANC must act decisively and with determination to rebuild the bond of trust between our people and the movement," the party said in a statement after a two-day meeting of its senior members.

The statement addressed criticism that South Africa currently has two centres of power -- Zuma still in office as president, while Ramaphosa heads the ruling ANC party.

"(Party) officials, led by President Ramaphosa, will continue their engagement with President Jacob Zuma to ensure effective coordination between the ANC and government," it said.

- Zuma to leave, but when? -

The News 24 website said the party's executive meeting had decided that Zuma must leave office, but that no exact timeline had been agreed.

"We will have a new president in the coming weeks," it quoted one unnamed party member at the meeting as predicting.

Zuma's closest allies still hold senior positions in the party, and he could in theory remain president until the 2019 election that marks the end of his second and final term in office.

His control over the ANC was shaken when his chosen successor -- his former wife Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma -- lost out to Ramaphosa in the closely-fought race to be party leader.

Zuma, 75, could leave office either by resigning, through losing a motion of no-confidence in parliament or impeachment proceedings.

He could also be recalled by the ANC, forcing him to step down.

Whoever is president on February 8 will deliver the annual state of the nation address in parliament -- providing one deadline for political manoeuvering.

Ramaphosa, 65, is a former trade unionist who led talks to end white-minority rule in the early 1990s and then became a multi-millionaire businessman before returning to politics.

The ANC, which has ruled since 1994 when Nelson Mandela won the first multi-racial election, recorded its worst-ever results in 2016 local polls.

Undefeated Mikey Garcia's bid for a fourth world crown in a super lightweight showdown with International Boxing Federation champion Sergey Lipinets of Russia has been postponed to March 10, promoters announced Friday.

Unbeaten Lipinets suffered a hand injury in training for a fight card that had been scheduled for February 10 in San Antonio, Texas. The bouts will remain in San Antonio, but the venue will be moved from the Alamodome to Freeman Coliseum.

Garcia, 37-0 with 30 knockouts, captured the World Boxing Council lightweight crown a year ago and has owned World Boxing Organization featherweight and super featherweight titles.

Lipinets, 13-0 with 10 knockouts, took a unanimous decision from Japan's Akihiro Kondo in November at New York to capture the vacant IBF crown and will be making his first title defense.

Also moved back a month was the undercard feature, for the vacant WBA super lightweight title and a possible unification bout with the Garcia-Lipinets winner, between Cuban Rances Barthelemy, 26-0 with 13 knockouts, and Belarus' Kiryl Relikh, 21-2 with 19 knockouts, in a rematch of last May's unanimous decision victory by Barthelemy.

World 100 meter silver medalist Christian Coleman opened his 2018 campaign by breaking the 60 meter indoor world record on Friday at the Clemson Invitational track meet.

The 21-year-old American charged to victory in the final in 6.37 seconds to surpass the previous record of 6.39 held by compatriot Maurice Greene.

Greene ran the time twice, in 1998 in Madrid, Spain, and 2001 in Atlanta, Georgia.

Coleman's previous best was 6.45 seconds at last year's US collegiate indoor championships.

The meet at Clemson University in South Carolina was the first event of the season for Coleman. Earlier in the day he ran a time of 6.47 seconds.

Tevin Hester, of the US, was second in 6.57 while Warren Fraser of the Bahamas finished third with a time of 6.69.

Last year, Coleman also ran a 9.82 100 meters which stood up to become the fastest time of the 2017.

The US government officially shut down on Saturday, the first anniversary of President Donald Trump's inauguration, after lawmakers failed to agree a stop-gap spending deal.

Senators were still negotiating on the Senate floor as the clock turned midnight, but Trump's office issued a statement blaming opposition Democrats for the crisis.

Spokeswoman Sarah Sanders said the Democrats' insistence that the interim measure include protection for undocumented immigrants who arrived as children killed the deal.

"Senate Democrats own the Schumer Shutdown," she declared, referring to the minority leader, New York Senator Chuck Schumer, who met with Trump earlier Friday.

"Tonight, they put politics above our national security, military families, vulnerable children, and our country's ability to serve all Americans.

"We will not negotiate the status of unlawful immigrants while Democrats hold our lawful citizens hostage over their reckless demands," she warned.

US federal services and military operations deemed essential will continue, but thousands of government workers will be sent home without pay until the crisis is resolved.

Mary Lou McDonald has been introduced to Sinn Féin supporters as the party's President-Elect by Gerry Adams at a meeting this morning of the party Ard Comhairle and its Northern region organisation in Belfast.

Sinn Fein's governing council met in Belfast to formally ratify Ms McDonald, with a special conference to elect her to be held next month when Mr Adams, 69, steps down after nearly 35 years at the helm. A special party conference to elect a new leader will be held on 10 February.

Cathaoirleach of Ennis Sinn Féin Tommy Guilfoyle is confident Mary Lou is the woman to drive the party forward.

"Irish unity is the best solution for this island and we will work to convince our unionist friends and neighbours of that", she declared.

More news: Angelique Kerber beats Maria Sharapova to reach Australian Open fourth round

Ms McDonald, 48, was Sinn Féin's first MEP and has been TD, a position equivalent to a MP, for Dublin Central since 2011.

Deputy McDonald's succession to president-elect comes after Gerry Adams past year announced he would be standing down as his party's leader in 2018.

She will take over from Gerry Adams.

"I never thought come February 10 I would be the boss man!" "I won't fill Gerry's shoes - the news is I've brought my own".The change represents a major shift for Sinn Fein, so closely associated with Adams' leadership, which started in November 1983.

Mr Adams also used the Belfast gathering to indicate Sinn Féin wants to see an end to the stalemate at Stormont.

Ms McDonald had criticised Mr McElduff but described the three-month suspension handed down by the party as "appropriate and proportionate".

Sinn Fein is now the third biggest party in the Republic of Ireland and the second biggest party in Northern Ireland.He said Ms McDonald was the "ideal candidate" to "lead Sinn Fein into the future". "We also need to win that referendum. don't believe the naysayers and begrudgers who claim that a United Ireland is a pipe dream".

French President Emmanuel Macron said a special post-Brexit trade agreement between Britain and the EU was certainly possible but would not involve full access to the single market, in a BBC interview to be screened Sunday.

Macron, who met British Prime Minister Theresa May for talks on Thursday, said there could not be complete single market access without fully signing up.

However, Britain could strike a deal that would fall between full access and a regular trade agreement.

"For sure, you will have your own solution," Macron told BBC television, in extracts released Saturday.

"But... this special way should be consistent with the preservation of the single market and our collective interests.

"To get full access to the single market, you need contribution to the budget and you have to accept the freedoms... and you have to accept the jurisdiction.

"As soon as you decide not to join these preconditions, it's not a full access," the 40-year-old said.

"So it's something perhaps between this full access and a trade agreement."

After Thursday's talks with May, Macron said France would not give in to British demands for the financial services sector to be covered by a Brexit trade deal.

Full access for financial services to the single market "is not feasible", he told the BBC.

"There should be no cherry-picking in the single market because that's a dismantling of the single market."

Macron said Britain could have "deeper relations" with the European Union than other countries, as is the case with Norway.

Following a referendum in 2016, Britain is due to leave the EU in March 2019.

"I do respect this vote, I do regret this vote, and I would love to welcome you again," Macron said.

The full interview is to be aired Sunday.

Pope Francis was set Saturday to hold a huge outdoor mass in a coastal region of Peru struggling to rebuild in the wake of devastating floods last year.

His visit to Trujillo province, some 560 kilometers (350 miles) north of Lima, will be a change of pace after a politically charged first day in the Latin American country where he railed against "great business interests" for endangering the Amazon and its tribes.

The mass will take place on a wide swathe of beach able to accommodate 500,000 people, in the historic town of Huanchaco popular with surfers and known for its distinctive reed watercraft known as "caballitos de totora."

Many had already begun gathering there Friday night in anticipation of the pontiff, despite persistent drizzle.

He will then go to the town's poor "Buenos Aires" neighborhood which was especially hard hit by flooding last April.

More than 130 people were killed across Peru in heavy rains, floods and landslides fuelled by the El Nino weather phenomenon between January and April 2017, which also left at least 300,000 homeless.

The leader of the Catholic church will later preside over a ceremony in the town square before some 35,000 followers and meet with members of the clergy.

"We are waiting to see if the Pope brings blessings and can fix everything we have lost", said resident Lidia Garcia.

On Friday, he had sounded a stark warning about the future of the rainforest and tribe members, saying they had "never been so threatened."

Bare-chested tribesmen, their bodies painted and their heads crowned with colorful feathers, danced and sang for the pope when he arrived in the Peruvian city of Puerto Maldonado.

Thousands of indigenous people had traveled to meet the pontiff from throughout the Amazon basin region of Peru, Brazil and Bolivia.

Pope Francis, 81, arrived Thursday afternoon in Peru, the second and last leg of a week-long South American visit.

During the first part of his visit, in Chile, Francis highlighted the plight of vulnerable immigrants, offered an apology to victims of sexual abuse by Catholic priests, prayed with survivors of Augusto Pinochet's brutal dictatorship, and called for protection of Chile's persecuted indigenous communities.

Before his visit to Chile, the US-based NGO Bishop Accountability said that almost 80 members of the Roman Catholic clergy had been accused of sexually abusing children in Chile since 2000.

At the pope's first public mass in Santiago on Tuesday, he faced protests over the church's handling of decades of sexual abuse.

Eleven people were killed on Saturday and 46 injured when a Turkish intercity bus taking families bound for a half-term skiing trip crashed into trees while travelling on a motorway, local officials said.

The bus, which was making an overnight journey from the capital Ankara to the western city of Bursa, crashed in the region of Eskisehir amid good road conditions, Eskisehir governor Ozdemir Cakacak was quoted as saying by the Dogan news agency.

The road was empty and neither wet nor frozen, Cakacak said, vowing that the causes would be made clear.

Dogan reported that the passengers on the bus were mainly families with their children who were going to Bursa to spend the upcoming half-term at the popular Uludag ski resort.

It said the passengers were on a special all-inclusive promotion offered by the bus company to spend the week at the ski resort before returning to Ankara.

The news agency did not say if any children were among those killed. Identification of the bodies was in progress.

The two drivers, who were both lightly injured, have been detained and prosecutors launched an investigation, Dogan said.

The driver who was at the wheel at the time of the crash, has denied any wrongdoing.

"I saw a dark shape which I thought was a dog," Dogan quoted him as saying.

"I went to the right but the bus went out of control and hit a tree... I was not going fast, I was not sleeping, it was a matter of an instant," the man added.

Turkey has a dire road safety record with over a million accidents in 2016 and 7,300 people losing their lives, according to official statistics.

Two American and two Canadians who were kidnapped in an ambush by gunmen in northern Nigeria this week were freed on Saturday, police said.

Nigerian security forces had launched a manhunt after the four were seized on Tuesday evening in the state of Kaduna by kidnappers who shot dead two of their police escorts.

"They have been rescued thanks to the efforts of the police," Kaduna state police spokesman Muktar Aliyu said, adding that they comprised three men and one woman.

"All of them are in a good condition of health" and are now in the care of their embassies, he said.

Aliyu said they were rescued at about 5 am (0400 GMT) in the same area where they were kidnapped, but declined to give further information, saying it was "classified information".

"I cannot confirm if there have been negotiations or a ransom paid," Aliyu added.

One person suspected of links to the kidnapping -- the latest abduction targeting foreigners in Nigeria -- has been arrested, he said.

The four North Americans -- whose identities have not been disclosed -- were on private business in Kaduna when they were snatched on the road from the town of Kafanchan to the capital Abuja.

"We are aware of reports of two US citizens kidnapped and released in Nigeria. The safety and security of US citizens overseas are among our top priorities. Due to privacy considerations we have no further comment," a US State Department official told AFP.

Kidnapping has long been a problem in Nigeria's southern states, where high-profile individuals, including the families of prominent politicians, are regularly seized.

- Violent crime common -

But as the economy stalled in recent years, the crime began creeping north.

A State Department travel advisory urges US citizens to "reconsider" travelling to Nigeria, warning that "violent crime such as armed robbery, assault, carjacking, kidnapping and rape is common throughout the country".

A crackdown on cattle rustling has been blamed for rising numbers of abductions in the north, with criminals turning to kidnapping.

The Kaduna-Abuja road is notoriously unsafe. It is a journey of about two-and-a-half hours by car through villages and past tracts of fields and forests.

Security on the route came under intense scrutiny last year when the federal government announced the closure of the capital's only airport for essential runway repairs.

Many foreign missions and companies advised staff to limit their travel during the closure period, as all domestic and some international flights were switched to Kaduna.

In July 2016, Sierra Leone's defence attache to Nigeria was kidnapped by men in military fatigues armed with AK-47 rifles at a fake checkpoint on the Abuja-Kaduna road.

And in another abduction against foreigners, in October, four Britons including a man and his wife working for a Christian charity were kidnapped in the southeastern Delta State.

The British government announced the following month that one of the hostages was killed, but the three others were freed.

Thai police have arrested a suspected kingpin of wildlife trafficking who allegedly fueled much of Asia's illegal trade for over a decade, officials said Saturday.Boonchai Bach, a 40-year-old Thai of Vietnamese descent, was arrested Friday in the northeastern border province of Nakhon Phanom in connection with the with smuggling of 14 rhino horns worth over $1 million from Africa into Thailand last month, in a case that also implicated a Thai official and a Chinese and a Vietnamese courier, Thai police said.

Boonchai allegedly ran a large trafficking network on the Thai-Laos border that spread into Vietnam. According to the anti-trafficking group Freeland Foundation, he and his family played a key role in a criminal syndicate that has smuggled poached items including ivory, rhino horn, pangolins, tigers, lions and other rare and endangered species.

Police said Boonchai denied the charges against him. Under the wildlife law, he could face up to four years in prison and a 40,000 baht ($1,300) fine, but authorities said they're also considering money-laundering and customs violation charges that carry up to 10 years in prison.

"One of the largest known wildlife traffickers in a really big syndicate has been arrested," said Matthew Pritchett, Freeland's director of communications. "In a nutshell, I can't think of anything in the past five years that has been this significant."

Thailand is a transit hub for trafficked wildlife mostly destined for China, and was considered to have the largest unregulated ivory market in the world before it introduced the Elephant Ivory Act of 2014 and 2015 to regulate the domestic ivory market and criminalize the sale of African elephant ivory. Rhinoceros horns, pangolin scales, turtles, and other exotic wildlife are still repeatedly smuggled through Thailand.In December, Thai airport official Nikorn Wongprajan was arrested at Suvarnabhumi Airport after he was caught together with a Chinese smuggler and a Vietnamese courier with 14 rhino horns and admitted to being hired to send the horns to one of Boonchai's relatives, Freeland's statement said, adding the group helped Thai police with information about Boonchai that led to his arrest.

Steve Galster, founder of Freeland, said Boonchai's arrest breaks open Thailand's "largest wildlife crime case ever."

"This network is connected to a group of moneymen who may be living outside the country. We are working to get arrest warrants out on those people as well," said Gen. Chalermkiat Sriworakhan, deputy police commissioner. Three years ago, Thailand froze $37 million in assets linked to a tiger trafficking ring in the country's northeast, after investigation helped by Freeland. In 2016, a court order seized Thai bank accounts and other assets, including a house worth $142,000, belonging to Chumlong Lemtongthai, a Thai who was convicted in South Africa on rhino horn trafficking charges.

Chumlung was imprisoned in 2012 after being sent by the Southeast Asian trafficking syndicate called the Xaysavang network - which authorities say includes Boonchai - to take advantage of South Africa's permit system for professional trophy hunts. He hired prostitutes to pose as hunters, and organized sham expeditions during which 26 rhinos were killed, according to court documents. Customs papers were then doctored for shipping the rhino horns to Laos.

The decision to go after Chumlung's assets was made only in 2016, after agents received training in asset recovery. The alleged Laotian kingpin of the Xaysavang network, Vixay Keosavang, remains at large with a U.S. bounty of $1 million on his head.

"We have been looking at this syndicate for over a decade now," said Onkuri Majumdar, a program officer from Freeland. "They have tentacles all over Africa and Southeast Asia. They are responsible for the slaughter of thousands of endangered animals including rhinos and elephants. And let's not forget rangers in Africa who have died, killed by poachers financed by men like Boonchai."In December, Thai airport official Nikorn Wongprajan was arrested at Suvarnabhumi Airport after he was caught together with a Chinese smuggler and a Vietnamese courier with 14 rhino horns and admitted to being hired to send the horns to one of Boonchai's relatives, Freeland's statement said, adding the group helped Thai police with information about Boonchai that led to his arrest.

Steve Galster, founder of Freeland, said Boonchai's arrest breaks open Thailand's "largest wildlife crime case ever."

"This network is connected to a group of moneymen who may be living outside the country. We are working to get arrest warrants out on those people as well," said Gen. Chalermkiat Sriworakhan, deputy police commissioner. Three years ago, Thailand froze $37 million in assets linked to a tiger trafficking ring in the country's northeast, after investigation helped by Freeland. In 2016, a court order seized Thai bank accounts and other assets, including a house worth $142,000, belonging to Chumlong Lemtongthai, a Thai who was convicted in South Africa on rhino horn trafficking charges.

Chumlung was imprisoned in 2012 after being sent by the Southeast Asian trafficking syndicate called the Xaysavang network - which authorities say includes Boonchai - to take advantage of South Africa's permit system for professional trophy hunts. He hired prostitutes to pose as hunters, and organized sham expeditions during which 26 rhinos were killed, according to court documents. Customs papers were then doctored for shipping the rhino horns to Laos.

The decision to go after Chumlung's assets was made only in 2016, after agents received training in asset recovery. The alleged Laotian kingpin of the Xaysavang network, Vixay Keosavang, remains at large with a U.S. bounty of $1 million on his head.

"We have been looking at this syndicate for over a decade now," said Onkuri Majumdar, a program officer from Freeland. "They have tentacles all over Africa and Southeast Asia. They are responsible for the slaughter of thousands of endangered animals including rhinos and elephants. And let's not forget rangers in Africa who have died, killed by poachers financed by men like Boonchai."

Beijing on Saturday said it had dispatched a warship to drive away a US missile destroyer which had "violated" its sovereignty by sailing close to a shoal in the disputed South China Sea.The USS Hopper sailed within 12 nautical miles of Huangyan Island on the night of January 17 without alerting Beijing, the foreign ministry said, referring to the shoal by its Chinese name.

Also known as Scarborough Shoal, the ring of reefs lies about 230 kilometres (140 miles) from the Philippines in the South China Sea, where Beijing's claims are hotly contested by other nations.

The US vessel "violated China's sovereignty and security interests", and put the safety of nearby Chinese vessels "under grave threat", foreign ministry spokesman Lu Kang said.

China's defence ministry said in a separate statement that a Chinese frigate "immediately took actions to identify and verify the US ship and drove it away by warning" it.

The USS Hopper recently entered the US Navy's 7th Fleet area of operations, where the ship is on an "independent deployment", according to a statement released earlier this month on the Navy's website.

Its mission in Asia involves "security cooperation, building partner capacity, and performing routine operations within the area".

News of the encounter follows Friday's release of a new US national defence strategy that says America is facing "growing threats" from China and Russia.

China is a "strategic competitor using predatory economics to intimidate its neighbors while militarizing features in the South China Sea", the document says.

China's defence ministry dismissed those claims on Saturday, saying "the situation in the South China Sea has steadily stabilised," in comments attributed to spokesman Wu Qian.

But it added, "the United States has repeatedly sent warships illegally into the adjacent waters of the South China Sea islands and reefs."

Beijing asserts sovereignty over almost all of the resource-rich South China Sea despite rival claims from Southeast Asian neighbours and has rapidly built reefs into artificial islands capable of hosting military planes.

China seized Scarborough Shoal in 2012 after a brief stand-off with the Philippine navy. The shoal is also claimed by Taiwan.

A former Egyptian armed forces chief of staff said on Saturday that he will challenge fellow military man Abdel Fattah al-Sisi for the presidency in March.

General Sami Anan's announcement came just hours after Sisi publicly confirmed he would seek a second term in the March 26-28 election, the third since the 2011 overthrow of longtime strongman Hosni Mubarak.

In a video posted on Facebook, Anan said he would seek to correct the "wrong policies" that had been adopted since Sisi ousted elected Islamist president Mohamed Morsi when commander in chief in 2013.

He said Egypt faced multiple challenges after the long years of turmoil, including deteriorating living conditions and a jihadist insurgency in the Sinai Peninsula.

"This is all the result of wrong policies which have put all the responsibilities on the armed forces without rational policies that would enable the civilian sector of the state to carry out its role in full, alongside the role of the armed forces," he said.

Anan said he had already put in place a team of civilians to support his bid, including Hisham Geneina, a former head of Egypt's anti-corruption watchdog who was sacked by Sisi in 2016 after publishing a damning report that put the losses from graft at more than $100 billion.

Anan served as armed forces chief of staff from 2005 until he was retired by Morsi in 2012 and analysts said his candidacy might attract Egyptians nostalgic for the relative stability of the Mubarak era.

When the longtime strongman was forced to step down by the Arab spring protests of 2011, he ceded power to the Supreme Council of Armed Forces (SCAF), an interim executive made up of 20 generals in which Anan served as number two.

The top post was held by Field Marshal Mohamed Hussein Tantawi, the army commander in chief who was replaced by Sisi at the same time that Anan was retired.

Would-be candidates for the presidency must register with the National Elections Authority by January 29.

Several prominent figures who had been seen as potential challengers to Sisi had already ruled themselves out even before registrations opened on Saturday.

Former prime minister Ahmed Shafiq said on January 7 that he would not stand, reversing a pledge he made from the United Arab Emirates in November.

Shafiq had disappeared for 24 hours after being deported to Egypt last month following years in exile in the UAE.

On Monday, Mohamed Anwar Sadat, a dissident and nephew of the late president of the same name, said he would not stand because the climate was not right for free elections.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said on Saturday that Turkey had “de-facto” launched a new operation on the ground to oust Kurdish militia from a northern Syrian enclave, defying US warnings that the action risked destabilizing the area.

Turkey has in recent days sent dozens of military vehicles to the border area and readied pro-Ankara Syria rebels, amid repeated threats from top officials the operation on the town of Afrin was imminent.The Turkish army has over the last two days shelled camps and refuges used by the People’s Protection Units (YPG) militia in response to fire from the militia group, which Turkey deems to be a terror organization.

“The Afrin operation has de-facto been started on the ground,” Erdogan said in a televised speech in the city of Kutahya, without elaborating.“This will be followed by Manbij,” he added, referring to another Kurdish-controlled Syrian town to the east.

Turkey accuses the YPG of being the Syrian offshoot of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) which has waged a rebellion in the Turkish southeast for more than three decades, and is regarded as a terror group by Ankara and its Western allies.

But the YPG has been the key ally of Turkey’s fellow NATO member the United States in the fight against Islamic State jihadists, playing a key role in pushing the extremists out of their Syrian strongholds.

AFP correspondents in the area around the Turkish border village of Sugedigi in Hatay province saw several more Turkish military vehicles heading south to the border.

But it was still unclear what form a Turkish ground operation will take amid considerable political and military risks.Turkey from August 2016 to March 2017 pushed into Syria in its more than half-year Euphrates Shield operation in an area to the east of Afrin against both YPG and IS.

Syria’s Deputy Foreign Minister Faisal Mekdad warned on Thursday that the Syrian air force could destroy any Turkish warplanes used in the new offensive.

Analysts say that crucial for any major ground operation will be approval from Moscow, which has a military presence in the area and a cordial relationship with the YPG.

With conspicuous timing, Turkey’s army chief General Hulusi Akar and spy chief Hakan Fidan were in Moscow on Thursday, for talks with Russian counterparts on Syria.

“A full Turkish air and ground offensive will not take place without Moscow’s blessing,” said Anthony Skinner, Director MENA at global risk consultancy Verisk Maplecroft, adding that a full Turkish campaign is “not inevitable.”

Turkey’s state-run Anadolu news agency reported Friday afternoon that Russian military personnel in the Afrin area were withdrawing from their positions, but Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov later issued a strong denial.

Meanwhile the Turkish threats of an intervention have also raised eyebrows in Washington, which has backed the YPG as it dislodged IS and gained control of the swathe of northern Syria up to the Iraqi border.

The YPG-held enclave of Afrin marks the westernmost extent of its control and Turkey wants to make sure it is kept well to the east of the Euphrates River.“We do not believe that a military operation…serves the cause of regional stability, Syrian stability, or indeed Turkish concerns about the security of their border,” a senior US State Department official said on Friday.

Skinner said a Turkish operation would be a “serious blow” for the US-led coalition in Syria, which still depended heavily on the YPG to stabilize the area after the ousting of IS from major towns.

But Erdogan accused the United States of not keeping its past promises that the YPG would clear out of Manbij.

“The promises made to us over Manbij were not kept. So nobody can object if we do what is necessary,” said Erdogan, threatening to pursue the operations up to the Iraqi border.

Erdogan had reacted furiously this week to an announcement of plans to create a US-backed 30,000-strong border security force in northern Syria composed partly of YPG fighters, describing it as an “army of terror.”

US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson later said the “entire situation has been mis-portrayed, mis-described,” admitting “we owe them [Turkey] an explanation.”

But Erdogan appeared to scoff at the mixed messages and lashed out at American military support for the YPG.

“We don’t care what they say,” he warned. “They will learn how wrong it is to trust a terror organization.”

US Vice President Mike Pence kicked off a trip to the Middle East on Saturday with a visit to Egypt, where he pledged firm US backing to President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi in the nation's fight against militants.
Pence said ties between the two countries had never been stronger after a period of "drifting apart" and that President Donald Trump sent his gratitude to Sisi for implementing economic reforms.

"We stand shoulder to shoulder with you in Egypt in the fight against terrorism," Pence said.

Sisi said the two men discussed ways to eliminate the "disease and cancer" of terrorism and called Trump a friend.

Pence's quick visit comes at the start of a three-country tour that also includes stops in Jordan and Israel. This is the highest-level visit from a US official to the region since December, when Trump recognised Jerusalem as Israel's capital.

That decision, which reversed decades of US policy and set in motion the process of moving the US embassy to Jerusalem from Tel Aviv, upset leaders in the Arab world and prompted Palestinians to reject the United States as a broker for peace.

Anger over Jerusalem decision

Pence, a conservative Christian who was one of the driving forces behind the move, and Sisi did not discuss the Jerusalem decision during their public remarks in front of reporters.

Egypt has faced security problems, including attacks by Islamic State militants in the North Sinai region. Trump has made the fight against Islamic State a top priority.

Upon arriving at the palace where Pence and Sisi met, reporters traveling with the vice president initially were not allowed to exit their van and enter the building. Eventually they were admitted and allowed to attend part of the meeting.

From Cairo, Pence heads to Jordan, where he will meet with King Abdullah, a close US ally. Abdullah warned against declaring Jerusalem as Israel's capital, saying it would have a dangerous impact on regional stability and obstruct US efforts to resume peace talks.

Many people in Jordan are descendants of Palestinian refugees whose families left after the creation of Israel in 1948.

Pence, whose wife, Karen, is accompanying him, will end his trip in Israel, where he will be warmly welcomed in the aftermath of Trump's decision. He plans to meet with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, address the Israeli legislature and visit the Western Wall.

Pence is not scheduled to meet Palestinian leaders. They were incensed by Trump’s decision on Jerusalem, which upended the longstanding US position that negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians must determine the city's status.

The Trump administration’s recent announcement that it was withholding about half of the aid it was due to give to a United Nations relief agency that serves the Palestinians raised questions about fledgling US efforts to revive Israeli-Palestinian peace talks and further undermined Arabs' faith that the United States can act as an impartial arbitrator.

Pence also plans to visit with US troops while he is in the region. US Vice President Mike Pence kicked off a trip to the Middle East on Saturday with a visit to
Egypt, where he pledged firm US backing to President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi in the nation's fight against militants.

'Shoulder to shoulder'

Pence said ties between the two countries had never been stronger after a period of "drifting apart" and that President Donald Trump sent his gratitude to Sisi for implementing economic reforms.

"We stand shoulder to shoulder with you in Egypt in the fight against terrorism," Pence said.

Sisi said the two men discussed ways to eliminate the "disease and cancer" of terrorism and called Trump a friend.

Pence's quick visit comes at the start of a three-country tour that also includes stops in Jordan and Israel. This is the highest-level visit from a US official to the region since December, when Trump recognised Jerusalem as Israel's capital.

That decision, which reversed decades of US policy and set in motion the process of moving the US embassy to Jerusalem from Tel Aviv, upset leaders in the Arab world and prompted Palestinians to reject the United States as a broker for peace.

Pence, a conservative Christian who was one of the driving forces behind the move, and Sisi did not discuss the Jerusalem decision during their public remarks in front of reporters.

Egypt has faced security problems, including attacks by Islamic State militants in the North Sinai region. Trump has made the fight against Islamic State a top priority.

Upon arriving at the palace where Pence and Sisi met, reporters traveling with the vice president initially were not allowed to exit their van and enter the building. Eventually they were admitted and allowed to attend part of the meeting.

From Cairo, Pence heads to Jordan, where he will meet with King Abdullah, a close US ally. Abdullah warned against declaring Jerusalem as Israel's capital, saying it would have a dangerous impact on regional stability and obstruct US efforts to resume peace talks.

Many people in Jordan are descendants of Palestinian refugees whose families left after the creation of Israel in 1948.

Pence, whose wife, Karen, is accompanying him, will end his trip in Israel, where he will be warmly welcomed in the aftermath of Trump's decision. He plans to meet with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, address the Israeli
legislature and visit the Western Wall.

Pence is not scheduled to meet Palestinian leaders. They were incensed by Trump’s decision on Jerusalem, which upended the longstanding US position that negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians must determine the city's status.

The Trump administration’s recent announcement that it was withholding about half of the aid it was due to give to a United Nations relief agency that serves the Palestinians raised questions about fledgling US efforts to revive Israeli-Palestinian peace talks and further undermined Arabs' faith that the United States can act as an impartial arbitrator.

Pence also plans to visit with US troops while he is in the region.

An Emirati youth died after his car rammed another vehicle and then crashed into a lamppost in Ras Al Khaimah on Saturday afternoon. Such was the impact of the accident that the car burst into flames.

The victim, identified as M.M., burned to death in the accident that was reported on the Ghalila road in the Shaam area.

After being alerted of the accident, the central operations room of the RAK Police dispatched police patrols and paramedics to the site.

"The victim, 19, died on the spot after he lost control over the car he was driving at a high speed, hit another car driven by an Arab driver, veered of the road, and rammed into a lamppost," said Brigadier Dr Mohammed Saeed Al Humaidi, director-general of the central operations department.

The accident was also blamed on the driver of the other car. "He erroneously entered the road without making sure it was clear first."

An Emirati youth died after his car rammed another vehicle and then crashed into a lamppost in Ras Al Khaimah on Saturday afternoon. Such was the impact of the accident that the car burst into flames.

The victim, identified as M.M., burned to death in the accident that was reported on the Ghalila road in the Shaam area.

After being alerted of the accident, the central operations room of the RAK Police dispatched police patrols and paramedics to the site.

"The victim, 19, died on the spot after he lost control over the car he was driving at a high speed, hit another car driven by an Arab driver, veered of the road, and rammed into a lamppost," said Brigadier Dr Mohammed Saeed Al Humaidi, director-general of the central operations department.

The accident was also blamed on the driver of the other car. "He erroneously entered the road without making sure it was clear first."

An Emirati youth died after his car rammed another vehicle and then crashed into a lamppost in Ras Al Khaimah on Saturday afternoon. Such was the impact of the accident that the car burst into flames.

The victim, identified as M.M., burned to death in the accident that was reported on the Ghalila road in the Shaam area.

After being alerted of the accident, the central operations room of the RAK Police dispatched police patrols and paramedics to the site.

"The victim, 19, died on the spot after he lost control over the car he was driving at a high speed, hit another car driven by an Arab driver, veered of the road, and rammed into a lamppost," said Brigadier Dr Mohammed Saeed Al Humaidi, director-general of the central operations department.

The accident was also blamed on the driver of the other car. "He erroneously entered the road without making sure it was clear first."

Rio's annual carnival is seen as a money-making extravaganza for the city. But evangelical Mayor Marcelo Crivella isn't a fan and slashed funding for next month's parade, forcing samba schools to cut their cloth accordingly.

Before his bombshell announcement in June that he was halving the budget of some $7 million, newly-elected Crivella broke with tradition by not attending the opening of the event in what was widely seen as a snub to its wild party culture.

Rio's 13 elite samba schools reacted by threatening to call a halt to the world's most famous carnival.

But the storm has since subsided, and one month to the day before the start of the party, the sewing machines are busily whirring in Samba City, a zone of warehouses and workshops where the magnificent floats and costumes are made.

"With or without money, I enjoy the carnival" is the theme of one of the best known Samba schools, the Mangueira.

It's a school whose idea of "sin" -- in a dig at former evangelical bishop Crivilla -- is "not to enjoy the carnival."

"The subsidy cut forced us to adapt our resources to make a beautiful, grandiose carnival, though one that is accommodated to this new reality," artistic director Leandro Vieira told AFP, even if he believes the mayor's motives to be religious rather than financial.

- 'Show will go on' -

"It's been a difficult year" of preparation, said Fabio Pavao, who helps manage the Portela school.

"The schools need the support of the public authorities, and with a mayor who likes carnival, everything is much easier."

The city's top samba schools -- the so called Special Group -- compete at Rio's Sambadromo arena with spectacular parades featuring lavishly decorated floats and thousands of dancers dressed in sequined micro-costumes.

Many schools see Crivella's subsidy cut as a declaration of war on the event, which last year brought in close to a billion dollars in tourism revenue to the city.

"We did not have the money to pay the subsidy in a comprehensive way, my responsibility as the mayor is huge and I cannot leave the hospitals without medicines and I cannot leave the schoolchildren without snacks," the 60-year-old mayor said, justifying the cuts as an inevitable reflection of Brazil's economic crisis.

But carnival director Vieira said Crivella had other motivations.

"For the evangelical doctrine, the carnival is the festival of the devil," said Viera.

"An evangelical can think this way, but the mayor of Rio cannot. It's a tradition that brings powerful income to the city and that's what scares me the most, because it shows that this conservative thinking can even go against financial logic."

- 'Not a reveler' -

The head of the city's Riotur tourism office, Marcelo Alves, insisted there were no political or religious reasons for cutting resources.

"The mayor is not a reveler. We should respect that. But that doesn't mean he doesn't like carnival. It's very different, he likes it so much that, in a meeting, he even sang a samba that he recorded," Alves told AFP.

He added that not a day went by that Crivella -- a renowned gospel singer -- didn't call him for reassurance that preparations were running according to plan.

Riotur in fact worked to get private funding for the samba schools to try to close the gap left by the budget cuts. The schools were grateful but regretted the extra funds had not arrived sooner, as they had already been forced to plan for a smaller parade.

The big question is whether Crivella will attend.

"I hope he's there, because it's his role to be there. And who knows, if he sees the parade he may even like it," said Pavao.

Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi said Friday he would stand in a presidential election due to take place in March.

"I announce to you in the honesty and transparency which we are used to... my candidacy for the post of president of the republic," Sisi said at a conference in Cairo, broadcast live on state television.

Sisi is widely expected to win in the first round, set for March 26-28.

Egypt's former army chief, Sisi was elected in 2014, a year after leading the military's ouster of his predecessor Mohamed Morsi amid mass protests against the Islamist's year-long rule.

That was followed by a crackdown against thousands of Morsi supporters who demonstrated for weeks to demand his reinstatement.

In August 2013, security forces stormed a sit-in to disperse protesters, killing hundreds within hours and arresting thousands.

Egypt has since faced a string of deadly jihadist attacks, particularly in North Sinai, where an Islamic State group affiliate led what became a full-fledged insurgency following Morsi's ouster.

Sisi announced his candidacy Friday during the final segment of a three-day conference named "Story of a Nation" which showcased his accomplishments during his first term.

He said he had "done all I could".

"Regardless of who your vote will be for, all that I wish of you (is that you) show the world your participation in the elections and choose whoever you wish to," said Sisi.

The conference saw ministers and members of the public discuss issues including completed infrastructure projects, the military's counter-terrorism efforts, foreign policy and the war on drugs.

- Who will stand? -

So far, two prominent potential candidates have announced that they will not take part in the poll.

Former prime minister Ahmed Shafiq, who had been seen as a major rival to Sisi, said on January 7 that he would not be a candidate, reversing a pledge he made from the United Arab Emirates in November.

Shafiq had disappeared for 24 hours after being deported to Egypt last month following years in exile in the UAE.

On Monday, Mohamed Anwar Sadat, a dissident and nephew of Egypt's late president of the same name, announced he would not run in the poll because the climate was not right for free elections.

Other potential candidates include Khaled Ali, a rights lawyer and 2012 presidential candidate who challenged the government over Egypt's controversial transfer of two Red Sea islands to Saudi Arabia.

It remains unclear whether he will stand, as he was sentenced in absentia in September to three months in jail on accusations of "offending public decency", a ruling he appealed.

Ali said only the committee organising the election could decide whether that disqualified him as a candidate.

Separately, military Colonel Ahmed Konsowa was sentenced by a military court in December to six years in jail after he announced his intention to stand.

The head of Egypt's Zamalek football club, Mortada Mansour, said on Saturday he would put forward his candidacy.

Campaigning for the election begins on February 24 and will last until March 23.

The National Elections Authority will accept applications between January 20 and 29 from presidential hopefuls who are collecting the required number of signatures to stand.

Barely a month after Baghdad declared victory over the Islamic State group, the jihadists could still recapture areas of Iraq, especially near the border with Syria, experts and officials say.

Ali al-Bayati, a commander of the Hashed al-Shaabi paramilitary units which fought alongside Iraqi security forces in a gruelling battle against the group, said the Nimrud area of northern Iraq could "fall at any time because security there is fragile".

Last July, the authorities in Baghdad announced with much fanfare the "liberation" of nearby Mosul, Iraq's second city and capital of Nineveh province.

IS fighters who fled their former stronghold and took refuge to the west, in the vast desert towards the Syrian border, have since launched attacks on security forces and civilians, Bayati said.

Hiding out in valleys and gullies as well as trenches dug before their ouster from Mosul, the jihadists have built up stockpiles of arms, fuel, water and food and pose a persistent threat to populated districts along the Tigris valley, like the Nimrud area downstream from Mosul.

More than 4,000 jihadists have been arrested in Nineveh province since Mosul's capture, according to police chief General Wathiq al-Hamdani.

But Aed al-Louayzi of Nineveh provincial council said several civilians have been robbed or killed inside the city itself, some by assailants disguised as soldiers.

He said the attacks have been the work of IS members from the areas of Tal Afar and Hatra, both towns also recaptured last year from the jihadists.

Hisham al-Hashemi, a specialist on jihadist movements, said Iraq's announcement in December of military victory "simply means that the (black) IS flag is no longer flying" over government buildings.

To counter the threat of an IS resurgence, "several operations have been carried out south of Mosul" with US-led coalition support to seize arms, said coalition spokesman Colonel Ryan Dillon.

- Active not sleepers -

Louayzi said that "geographically, the territory has been retaken... but not all the jihadists there have been arrested".

"We are in the same security situation as that which led to the fall of Mosul" back in 2014, which came after the extremists had seized control of some areas, he said.

To try to avoid past mistakes, Dillon said, "the coalition has trained Iraqi security forces to address the transition and future threats. We knew there would be a transition from fighting to policing."

The Hashed, which is patrolling the border with war-torn Syria, says it faces infiltration attempts by jihadists on a daily basis.

Although IS is also on the verge of overall military defeat in Syria, it surprised observers last week by announcing a comeback in the country's northwest.

In the Hawija area of northern Iraq, at least three civilians and a Hashed fighter have been killed this month, according to security sources.

They said around 60 jihadists have died in fighting around the town, one of the last IS urban strongholds retaken by Iraqi forces.

Iraq plans to hold parliamentary and provincial assembly elections on May 12 but they may yet be put off until the end of the year.

Large numbers of Sunni Arabs have yet to return to their homes in Nineveh and in Anbar province, west of Baghdad, after fleeing the fighting with IS.

Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi is seeking a new term at the head of a "Victory Alliance" while the Hashed are to stand separately on their own list as both seek to make political capital out of the military campaign.

On Monday, twin suicide bombings in Baghdad cost more than 30 lives, prompting Abadi to order security forces to "eliminate IS sleeper cells" and protect civilians.

But Hashemi said the threat is more immediate.

"This concept of sleeper cells is a mistake. They are not sleepers, they are active," he said. "They are capable of mounting attacks and even of taking control of zones."

US President Donald Trump plans to meet Britain's Prime Minister Theresa May at the World Economic Forum in Davos next week, the White House said Friday.

The announcement came after Trump cancelled a planned trip to London, casting further doubt on the strength of the vaunted trans-Atlantic "special relationship."

"President Trump looks forward to having a bilateral meeting with UK Prime Minister May in Davos next week to further strengthen the US–UK special relationship," spokeswoman Sarah Sanders said.

A Downing Street spokesman confirmed that the pair would meet on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum in the Swiss Alpine resort.

May was the first world leader to visit Trump at the White House after his inauguration last year and brought with her an invitation from Queen Elizabeth II for a state visit.

Since then, however, ties have become strained and thousands of Britons have taken to social media to promise large-scale street protests if the visit goes ahead.

The latest blow to ties came on January 11 when Trump confirmed in a tweet that he had "cancelled" a visit to London during which he had been expected to open the new US embassy.

Instead, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson will on Monday head to London to visit the embassy and hold talks with his British counterpart, Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson.

Tillerson will also visit Paris before joining Trump later in the week in Davos, which is hosting its annual policy forum for the global business elite.

A State Department official, speaking on condition of anonymity, told reporters that Tillerson would use his visit to London "to reaffirm the US-UK special relationship."

"My understanding is that he will make a visit to the mission," the official said.

"I don't think that there is a ribbon-cutting or any sort of ceremony planned, in part because the facilities are still in the final phase of construction," he said.

"I think there's still quite a lot of pieces and debris in the lobby and elsewhere and it's really not the moment for a ribbon-cutting, but he is visiting the new embassy."

- 'Bad deal' -

The US embassy's move from Grosvenor Square in the West End of London near the British Government's Whitehall headquarters to Nine Elms, on the south bank of the Thames, had been planned for 10 years.

But Trump suddenly came out against the idea earlier this month in one of his trademark angry tweets -- accusing his predecessor of having overspent on an unnecessary project.

"Reason I canceled my trip to London is that I am not a big fan of the Obama Administration having sold perhaps the best located and finest embassy in London for 'peanuts,' only to build a new one in an off location for 1.2 billion dollars," he tweeted.

"Bad deal. Wanted me to cut ribbon-NO!"

But the outburst was widely interpreted as an excuse from a sensitive president fearful that his visit would trigger an embarrassing public rejection from the British public.

Trump, while a supporter of those campaigning to bring Britain out of the European Union, has offended many other Britons with what they see as his divisive rhetoric.

The president has repeatedly sparred with London's Muslim mayor, Sadiq Khan, and other British officials on Twitter, accusing them of downplaying the threat of "radical Islamic terror."

And in November last year, he won a rebuke from May herself when he retweeted three propaganda videos promoted by the far-right racist movement Britain First.

But, despite the tensions, British leaders remain very keen to preserve trans-Atlantic ties, particularly so that their impending "Brexit" from Europe will not leave them isolated.

Today, 18 January 2018, the International Criminal Court ("ICC" or "Court") opened a judicial seminar titled “Complementarity and Cooperation of Courts in an Interconnected Global Justice System”, taking place at its seat in The Hague, Netherlands.

The seminar, first of its kind at the Court, brings together for an interactive discussion more than 50 senior judges, including chief justices, representing the national jurisdictions of 25 States Parties to the Rome Statute, 8 regional or international courts, and the International Criminal Court.

"As courts experience similar challenges, there is need to engage in a broader dialogue on how best to solve them", said ICC President Judge Silvia Fernández de Gurmendi in her opening remarks. "Our mandates and jurisdictions are distinct but we all share a unique and same goal, which is to ensure accountability and solve conflicts through justice. (...) Ending impunity for genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes and aggression is only possible with a shared vision and a joint commitment. I hope that we will today sharpen that vision and strengthen that commitment." 

Participants are discussing the interconnectedness of international, regional and national courts as part of a global system, collectively aimed at ensuring the rule of law and, in particular, accountability and justice for the gravest crimes under international law.

This Seminar is organised with the financial support of the European Commission. The Seminar will be followed by a formal Ceremony marking the opening of the ICC judicial year.

The Israeli army on Thursday revealed details of a massive underground barrier being built along the border with the Gaza Strip in a bid to neutralise the threat of Palestinian attack tunnels.

Eventually stretching some 65 kilometres (41 miles), the concrete wall will be accompanied by motion sensors designed to detect tunnel digging and is expected to be completed by mid-2019.

The project had been previously announced, but details of its construction had been kept secret until Thursday, when journalists were allowed to view aspects of it.

The details were unveiled days after the army destroyed what it described as a tunnel intended for attacks stretching from the blockaded Palestinian enclave into Israel and eventually Egypt, at least the third uncovered and demolished in less than three months.

Tunnels were among Hamas's most effective tools during the 2014 war with Israel, with militants using them to enter the Jewish state, carry out attacks and at times even return to Gaza through the underground passages.

The devastating 2014 conflict killed 2,251 Palestinians, while more than 10,000 were wounded and 100,000 were left homeless.

On the Israeli side, 74 people were killed, all but six of them soldiers.

Hamas and other militant groups in Gaza say tunnels are needed for defence.

An Israeli state inquiry published last year accused Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and top army brass of being unprepared for the "strategic threat" of the tunnels from the enclave run by Islamist movement Hamas.

But with the new underground barrier and sensors detecting movement, militant groups would no longer be able to build and use tunnels, a senior Israeli army official said.

"They understand that the strategic weapon of underground tunnels crossing the border is going to end," the official told reporters.

- 'Deep enough' -

Workers -- local and from abroad -- have been labouring around the clock for nearly a year.

The barrier is being built on Israeli territory, east of the existing border fence, with four kilometres completed so far -- in the area of the town of Sderot, off the northern Gaza Strip, and the Nahal Oz area near Gaza City.

The technique used is similar to that for building support walls for high-rise buildings or underground parking lots, the military official said at one of the barrier construction sites along the border.

Heavy machines dig a deep, narrow trench, filling it with bentonite slurry that keeps the trench from collapsing.

A metal reinforcing cage is inserted, with tubes sucking out the slurry and then filling the trench with cement drying into a wall approximately a metre wide.

Attack tunnels from Gaza can reach the depth of dozens of metres, with the Israeli army official only saying the new barrier would be "deep enough".

A new, eight-metre high border fence being erected atop the underground wall will further prevent infiltrations of Gazans into Israel, the senior official said.

Speaking to reporters near the Israeli community of Kissufim, where an attack tunnel built by Islamic Jihad was demolished in late October, Israeli military spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Jonathan Conricus said the underground wall would be the first such "complete underground barrier."

The operation to demolish the tunnel in October left 12 militants dead.

"Any attempt to tunnel into Israel ... will be detected and targeted" by the army, Conricus said.

But eliminating the tunnel threat would not mean that Gaza militants would cease their attacks on Israel, the senior military official said.

"They're training, building forces for the sea and land," he said.

The UN's agency for Palestinian refugees is the only reason Umm Mohamed could afford a C-section delivery, send her five children to school or have her rubbish collected.

So the massive funding cuts to UNRWA announced this week by the United States' pro-Israeli administration mean nothing less than catastrophe for the 42-year-old and her family.

"People are going to suffer a lot. We have no money for education or health care. Our only hope is UNRWA," said Umm Mohamed, standing in her living room in Burj al-Shmali camp, in southern Lebanon.

The agency, set up after the 1948 creation of Israel that drove huge numbers of Palestinians from their homes, faces what the UN has described as the "most severe" crisis in its history.

The United States held back $65 million that had been destined for UNRWA on Tuesday, two weeks after President Donald Trump threatened future payments.

The funding shortfall threatens the running of hundreds of schools and medical facilities for the roughly five million refugees living in UNRWA camps scattered across the Middle East.

Two weeks ago, Umm Mohamed had half of her medical testing expenses reimbursed by UNRWA. "What are people going to do now when it comes to health costs?," she wondered, a flowery grey veil framing her genial face.

Four of her children go to UNRWA schools and she is entitled to free visits to the doctor's.

- 'Thrown on the street' -

"If the schools close down, the children will be thrown on the street," her husband Freij said, sitting on his sofa in a grey tracksuit.

"UNRWA-supported education gives me some breathing space. I just can't afford to send them to other schools," he said.

His only income is from fixing and selling recycled furniture.

Freij's elder son dropped his business studies to join the masses of migrants seeking new opportunities in Europe and undertook the perilous boat crossing a few weeks ago, hoping he would soon be able to send money back to his parents.

A maze of narrow streets over which hangs a strong smell of sewage leads to their modest home.

Over the years and decades, Burj al-Shmali, which lies near the southern coastal city of Tyre, grew into a little town with shops, schools and multi-storey buildings.

According to a recent census, at least 174,000 Palestinians live in Lebanon. UNRWA's estimate is higher but in any event all depend on the agency for their survival.

Last year, 160,000 of them received care in UN-funded clinics and $14 million were disbursed to cover hospital fees.

Rubbish collection is supported by UNRWA, as are the maintenance of the infrastructure and sometimes home renovations.

- 'Catastrophic' -

"All these activities are at stake," Claudio Cordone, the Lebanon director of the Palestinian refugee agency, told AFP.

"If UNRWA cannot provide functioning clinics, cannot support people who are below the poverty line, if we have to close the schools you can see what is the impact on all these families and individuals."

The Norwegian Refugee Council warned it would be hugely difficult for aid groups to pick up the bill and fill the gaping vacuum left by reduced UN involvement.

"Cuts to UNRWA will have an incredible downstream effect on humanitarian aid agencies like NRC," the organisation's Lebanon spokesman, Mike Bruce, said.

The fate of the schools is one of the worst causes for alarm if donors fail to bridge the gap left by the US cuts, which compound a pre-existing funding crisis.

"There's already been several rounds of funding cuts, and another shock to that system is really a lot more than these communities can absorb," Bruce warned.

Iman Farat has been teaching in UNRWA schools for six years and the US announcement has left wondering about her future.

"Am I going to have work and get paid next month," asked the young English teacher. "Now they can just say bye-bye and tell me it's over. We're all very scared."

The schoolmaster, Jihad al-Khanaf, had little to say that would reassure her and could not rule out having to let go of Iman and 10 other teachers -- out of 24 -- with temporary contracts.

"A child who doesn't go to school here will end up in the street: that means drugs, terrorist groups. The situation we're facing is catastrophic," he said.

Israeli forces raided a Palestinian city in the occupied West Bank overnight to arrest suspects in the recent murder of an Israeli, leaving one of them dead and sparking clashes, officials said.

Two Israeli special forces members were wounded during the raid on Jenin that began late Wednesday and continued into Thursday morning, the Israeli military said. A number of arrests were made.

The Palestinian health ministry confirmed a Palestinian was killed in the operation, naming him as Ahmed Ismail Jarrar, 31.

It had earlier identified the dead man as Ahmed Nasser Jarrar, 22 and the son of a militant from the Hamas Islamist movement.

The whereabouts of Ahmed Nasser Jarrar remain unclear, with his family saying he was missing.

Palestinian witnesses said they saw at least two Palestinians arrested, with clashes continuing into Thursday morning.

Witnesses said two houses belonging to the family were also demolished during the operation.

The Israeli military said that during the raid "a violent riot was instigated. Palestinian rioters hurled IEDs (improvised explosive devices), blocks and rocks and fired at the forces."

"In order to disperse the violent riot, forces responded with riot dispersal means and fired live rounds selectively," it said.

Videos posted online by Palestinians showed multiple Israeli armoured vehicles entering the city.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, on a visit to India, said in a statement that "we will track down all who attack us and we will hold them accountable."

Raziel Shevah, a 35-year-old rabbi, was shot dead near Havat Gilad, the wildcat Jewish settlement outpost he lived in near the West Bank city of Nablus, on January 9.

Israeli forces have been hunting for the assailants since then, with roadblocks and checkpoints set up around Nablus following the murder.

There are frequent tensions between Israeli settlers in the Nablus area and Palestinians. Some 600,000 Israeli settlers live in the West Bank and annexed east Jerusalem alongside nearly three million Palestinians.

US President Donald Trump's recognition of Jerusalem as Israel's capital on December 6 triggered unrest in the Palestinian territories, although it was unclear if the murder was related.

Eighteen Palestinians have been killed since Trump's declaration, most of them in clashes with Israeli forces. Shevah is the only Israeli killed during that time period.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov on Friday ruled out the possibility of salvaging the Iranian nuclear deal if President Donald Trump decides to pull the United States out of the agreement.

"This agreement cannot be implemented if one of the participants unilaterally steps out of it," Lavrov told a news conference at the United Nations.

"It will fall apart and there will be no deal then," he said, adding: "I think everyone understands that."

Trump last week agreed to again waive US nuclear-related sanctions on Iran, but demanded that US lawmakers and European allies fix the "disastrous flaws" in the deal or face a US exit.

"This is a decisive moment," Lavrov said.

Russia and the United States are among the six world powers that signed the 2015 landmark deal with Iran that aims to curb Tehran's nuclear program in exchange for lifting sanctions.

Lavrov made clear that there would be no attempt by Russia to salvage it with the five remaining powers, if the United States pulls out.

Russia will make every effort to persuade the United States "not to touch this thing," said Lavrov, saying that the deal was "not dead yet."

The foreign minister again made the argument that killing off the Iran nuclear deal would also compromise any bid to persuade North Korea to scrap its nuclear arsenal.

If the Iranian nuclear deal is not upheld, "how can we ask North Korea to use the same option" and abandon its nuclear ambitions, asked Lavrov.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres told the Security Council this week that it was in the world's interest that the nuclear agreement "be preserved."

A last-ditch battle to avert a looming US government shutdown moved to the Senate on Friday, where Democrats angered by the collapse of immigration talks have vowed to block a stop-gap funding bill.

With the federal government set to run out of money Friday at midnight -- the eve of the one-year anniversary of President Donald Trump's inauguration -- the bill cleared the House with a 230-197 vote.

But prospects appeared gloomy in the Senate, where Democrats eager for leverage on budget and immigration deals were intent on shooting it down.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, a Democrat, said that if agreement is not reached by Friday night, there should be an even shorter-term funding measure of a few days that would "give the president a few days to come to the table."

Mitch McConnell, the Senate Republican Majority Leader, said the House bill provides for four weeks of funding, enough to allow talks to continue "without throwing the government into disarray for no reason."

Schumer wants to "hold the entire country hostage," McConnell said.

"The leader is looking to deflect blame, but it just won't work," said Schumer.

House Speaker Paul Ryan called on Schumer to avoid a government shutdown, saying: "It is risky. It is reckless. And it is wrong."

Trump -- who Schumer said "is like a Sphinx on this issue" -- on Thursday added to the chaos gripping Washington, weighing in on the intense Republican maneuvering aimed at avoiding a politically embarrassing funding debacle.

After a burst of tweets he second-guessed top Republican lawmakers and slapped down his own chief of staff, who had been leading a White House push on Capitol Hill for a budget compromise.

Arriving at the Pentagon for a visit, Trump told reporters the government "could very well" shut down Friday.

In the event the funding dries up, federal employees for agencies considered non-essential are ordered to stay home until a budget deal is struck, at which point they are paid retroactively.

The most recent shutdowns -- in 1995, 1996 and 2013 -- saw about 800,000 workers furloughed per day.

Key government bodies such as the White House, Congress, State Department and Pentagon would remain operational, but would likely furlough some staff.

The military would still report for duty, but troops -- including those in combat -- would potentially not be paid.

The finger-pointing had already begun, with each side blaming the other for a failure to reach a budget compromise after three previous funding extensions.

"A government shutdown will be devastating to our military... something the Dems care very little about!" Trump tweeted in the morning.

And yet in another tweet, Trump criticized the Republican short-term funding measure, opposing a sweetener intended to make it hard for Democrats to vote against it.

- Bargaining chip -

The sweetener is a six-year extension of CHIP, a popular children's health insurance program which Democrats have worked hard to protect.

Up against a similar deadline last month, lawmakers passed a short-term resolution to keep the federal government funded until January 20.

If the Republican-led measure fails, Democrats will gain greater leverage to insist on a funding compromise that includes protection from deportation for the so-called "Dreamers," the estimated 700,000 immigrants brought to the United States illegally as children.

Negotiations on a bipartisan compromise that includes a solution for the "Dreamers" program collapsed in acrimony at a White House meeting last week.

Trump's reported reference to African nations and Haiti as "shithole countries" ignited a still-smoldering political firestorm.

- No 'evolution' -

White House chief of staff John Kelly met Wednesday with the Congressional Hispanic Caucus to make the case that Trump had "evolved" on his signature campaign promise to build a wall the length of the US border.

Funding for border security, but not a full-blown wall, was part of the bipartisan budget compromise presented at last week's contentious White House talks.

Participants at the meeting with Kelly quoted the retired general and former head of the Department of Homeland Security as saying Trump was not "fully informed" when he made the wall promise.

But Trump hit back on Twitter Thursday: "The Wall is the Wall, it has never changed or evolved from the first day I conceived of it," he wrote.

"If there is no Wall, there is no Deal!" Trump said in another tweet that described Mexico as "now rated the most dangerous country in the world."

The mixed messages from the White House prompted a rebuke Wednesday from a frustrated McConnell.

"I'm looking for something that President Trump supports, and he's not yet indicated what measure he's willing to sign," McConnell told reporters.

India's top court on Friday upheld the acquittal of a Bollywood director accused of raping an American research scholar in a case that has sparked intense debate about consent in a country with high levels of sexual violence.

Mahmood Farooqui was initially found guilty of rape in 2016, but the Delhi high court last year overturned the conviction on appeal, ruling the incident had been consensual.

One of the judges hearing that appeal said Farooqui may not have been aware that the woman had not consented to sex, a comment that attracted fierce criticism from rights activists.

"In cases where the parties are known to each other, it could be really difficult to decipher whether a feeble 'no' – little or no resistance – actually amounts to denial of consent," said Justice Ashutosh Kumar.

The alleged victim sought to appeal, but the Supreme Court on Friday dismissed her plea, saying the acquittal had been sound.

"The high court judgement is well written. It does not require our interference," said S.A. Bobde, one of the judges hearing the case.

Activist Kavita Krishnan said Friday's ruling was a "betrayal of women's rights" and of the new, tougher laws on sexual violence introduced after the fatal gang rape of a Delhi student in 2012.

"If you made a drink for a man, our Supreme Court thinks your No can then be read as Yes," tweeted Krishnan, secretary of the All India Progressive Women's Association.

"SC refusal to even admit the plea against atrocious 'Feeble No' verdict is a betrayal of women's rights and of the 2013 rape law."

The case dates back to 2015 when the scholar had travelled to India to seek Farooqui's assistance with her research.

She travelled home to the US shortly afterwards but returned to India to report the matter to police.

India has a grim record of sexual crimes against women, with nearly 39,000 rape cases reported in 2016, according to government data.

The 2012 Delhi gang rape sparked mass protests and led to an overhaul of rape laws that increased penalties for offenders and accelerated trials through courts.

But activists say much more needs to be done.

More than 200 people have been arrested and dozens hurt during clashes in several parts of Tunisia, the interior ministry said Wednesday, after a second night of unrest driven by anger over austerity measures.

The North African country has been hailed for its relatively smooth democratic transition since its 2011 uprising, but seven years after the revolution tensions over economic grievances are high.

Tunisia has seen rising anger over hikes in value-added tax and social contributions after a tough new budget was applied at the start of the year.Interior ministry spokesman Khalifa Chibani told local radio that 49 police officers were wounded during clashes across the country and that 206 "troublemakers" were arrested overnight.

Properties were damaged, he said, including a branch of the Carrefour supermarket chain in the suburbs of Tunis that was looted.

A witness said youths threw stones at shop windows on Tuesday evening, taking advantage of the chaos to steal goods including electrical appliances. The police intervened, firing tear gas.

The army has been deployed around banks, post offices and other government buildings in the country's main cities, the defence ministry said.

- Stones, tear gas -

In Tebourba 30 kilometres (20 miles) west of the capital Tunis, hundreds of young people took to the streets on Tuesday after the funeral of a man in his 40s who died in the unrest.

Police have insisted they did not kill the man. The results of an autopsy have not been made public.Unrest was also reported in the working-class neighbourhoods of Djebel Lahmer and Zahrouni on the outskirts of Tunis, the central cities of Gafsa and Kasserine, and the northern town of Jedaida.

But AFP correspondents said calm had returned to these areas on Wednesday morning.

In the central town of Sidi Bouzid, the cradle of the protests that sparked the 2011 Arab Spring uprisings, youths blocked roads and hurled stones, causing the police to retaliate with tear gas, an AFP reporter said.

A representative of Tunisia's Jewish community said two Molotov cocktails were thrown at the entrance to two Talmudic schools on the Mediterranean island of Djerba, but their interiors were not damaged.

- Friday protest -

The recent unrest started with peaceful protests against the austerity measures last week, but escalated into clashes with police in the night of Monday to Tuesday.

Activists have called for a massive demonstration on Friday against the austerity measures, which are expected to increase the cost of living.They have called for the revision of the legislation behind the VAT and social contribution hikes, as well as better welfare for struggling families.

"There are acts of looting and robbery but also a political message from a section of the population that has nothing to lose and feels ignored" seven years after a revolution demanding work and dignity, said political scientist Selim Kharrat.

He said that many public buildings have been targeted while the government has "taken a pretty strong stance against the protesters".

The powerful UGTT trade union said young unemployed Tunisians had legitimate demands but condemned the "violence and looting", calling for peaceful protests.

Tunisia's economy has struggled since the 2011 revolution, which was fuelled by unemployment and graft.

Protests are common in the North African state in the month of January, when Tunisians mark the anniversary of the revolt that unseated dictator Zine El Abidine Ben Ali.

January 2016 saw the biggest wave of public discontent since the uprising as the death of an unemployed protester in Kasserine sparked days of unrest.

In December, unemployed protesters and activists marched through the streets of Sidi Bouzid, angry over the lack of jobs and opportunities that continue to plague residents.

The revolution in Tunisia began in the town in December 2010 after street vendor Mohamed Bouazizi set himself on fire and later died in a protest over unemployment and police harassment that spiralled into Ben Ali's overthrow.

The US plans to keep troops in northern Syria indefinitely to prevent the resurgence of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (Isil) and counter the influence of Iran, Rex Tillerson, the US secretary of state, has said.

Laying out the Trump administration’s broad strategy for Syria, Mr Tillerson said a quick withdrawal from Syria would give the jihadist group space to regroup after years of defeat on the battlefield. 

“The United States will maintain a military presence in Syria focused on ensuring Isil cannot re-emerge,” he said. “We cannot make the same mistakes that were made in 2011 when a premature departure from Iraq allowed al-Qaeda in Iraq to survive and eventually morph into Isil”.

Mr Tillerson said the US remained committed to seeing Bashar al-Assad, the Syrian leader, step down from power and would refuse to normalise diplomatic relations with Syria or provide reconstruction funds as “tools of pressure” to get Assad to go.

But America’s top diplomat also called for “patience in the departure of Assad and the establishment of new leadership”, a signal that the US does not expect the Syrian leader, who has survived nearly seven years of civil war, to relinquish power any time soon. Boris Johnson, the Foreign Secretary, called Mr Tillerson’s speech on Syria a “great statement of US leadership”.

The US has 2,000 troops in Syria and the open-ended commitment announced by Mr Tillerson means they will remain deployed in a place of fiendishly complex and shifting alliances between different actors in the Syrian war. 

That complexity has been on display this week as America’s Nato ally Turkey has threatened to launch a full-scale assault on America’s Kurdish allies in northern Syria. 

Turkey has been enraged by US plans to help train what American officials initially described as a 30,000-strong “border force”, composed mainly of Kurdish fighters, to maintain security on the Syrian-Turkish border.  

Turkey, which is wary of any sign of the Kurds setting up their own state in Syria, accused the US of "creating a terror army” and threatened to attack the Kurdish enclave of Afrin in response.Mr Tillerson hastily tried to lower the tension, saying the situation has been “misportrayed and misdescribed”. “We are not creating a border security force at all,” he said.

Turkish leaders said they were still not satisfied with Mr Tillerson’s response and called on the US to “eliminate the confusion”. Turkish forces have shelled Afrin but have yet to launch an all-out attack. 

Western diplomats said the US had recently begun to engage more seriously on the future of Syria as the war winds down. 

One of the immediate priorities of both the US and the UK is to try restore the primacy of the UN-brokered Geneva peace talks between the Syrian regime and opposition over over a set of Russian-organised talks in Sochi. 

The Geneva talks have for years failed to yield any real dividends but western diplomats are concerned that the Sochi talks, dominated by Vladimir Putin, will only strengthen the Assad regime. 

But the Syrian opposition is sceptical the US will be able to bring the regime to the negotiating table given its limited leverage in Syria compared to Russia’s deep involvement in the conflict. 

Nearly 140 chief executives from companies around the world will gather at the Versailles Palace outside Paris on Monday, as the French government steps up its efforts to attract more foreign investors.

President Emmanuel Macron orchestrated what is being billed as an "attractiveness summit" as executives converge for the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, next week.

A handful of economic accords are to be announced, including a major investment in "traditional industry" and two in "high-tech and artificial intelligence", an official in the president's office said.

"We are going to take advantage of the fact that on their way to Davos, corporate leaders are coming to Europe and can make a stop in Paris," the official said, asking not to be named.

The 40-year-old French leader has introduced a series of business-friendly reforms since taking power in May, including loosening labour laws and cutting taxes, and is aiming to slash unemployment from 9.7 percent to 7.0 percent by 2022.

The session will begin with a lunch with Prime Minister Edouard Philippe, followed by sessions with government ministers and prominent figures including the mathematician Cedric Villani, who became an MP last year as part of Macron's Republic On The Move (LREM) party.

Macron will cap the event with a closed-door speech and dinner.

"The president had a quiet straightforward goal, that an 'attractiveness summit' doesn't make any sense unless it comes with concrete projects," the source said.

About ten projects are currently being negotiated, the source added.

"The important thing for us, beyond explanations, is to show projects that will make them want to invest in France."

Roughly half of the participants will come from European companies, including Bosch, SAP, Novartis and Rolls-Royce.

About 25 percent will come from American groups, and the remainder from Africa, the Middle East and Asia.

The bosses of JPMorgan, Goldman Sachs, HSBC and Bank of America are expected to attend, while China's Alibaba will be represented by its deputy CEO.

Some 3,000 participants are expected to head to Swiss Alps for the 48th Davos conference that opens Tuesday.

The funeral of Cranberries singer Dolores O'Riordan, who died suddenly in London this week, will take place near Limerick, Ireland on Tuesday, the church where she will be buried said Friday.

"The Funeral Mass for the late Dolores O'Riordan... former member of the Cranberries will take place in the Church of Saint Ailbe, Ballybricken, at 11.30am on Tuesday 23 January followed by private family burial," the church announced.

Her body will lie in repose at a funeral home close to her home town of Limerick before Tuesday's private service that will be attended by around 200 family members and friends.

The 46-year-old frontwoman of the multi-million selling Irish rock band was found dead in a London hotel on Monday, aged 46.

Irish Prime Minister Leo Varadkar was among the first to pay tributes, calling O'Riordan "the voice of a generation".

London coroner Stephen Earl said Friday that he was awaiting test results following a post-mortem, with a full inquest set for April 3, although her death is not being treated as suspicious.

The Cranberries achieved international success in the 1990s with their debut album "Everyone Else is Doing it, So Why Can't We?", which included the hit single "Linger".

The follow-up album gave rise to politically-charged single "Zombie", an angry response to the deadly Northern Ireland conflict, which hit number one across Europe.

The band sold around 40 million records worldwide.

She was in London to record a version of "Zombie" with the hard rock band Bad Wolves, the group said on Tuesday.

The Cranberries' greatest hits collection "Stars: The Best Of 1992-2002" has hit number 16 on Britain's album chart, higher than when it was released in 2002.

French President Emmanuel Macron said Friday that his ambitious EU plans to reform the European Union needed German backing, as Chancellor Angela Merkel gears up for a crucial vote on forming a new coalition.

"Our ambition cannot come to fruition alone," Macron told a joint press conference with Merkel before talks in Paris. "It needs to come together with Germany's ambition."

On Sunday, some 600 delegates from Germany's Social Democrat (SPD) party will be asked to give the green light to a preliminary coalition agreement reached with Merkel's conservatives last week.

Merkel's political future is on the line, after more than 12 years in power.

At the meeting with Macron, which appeared aimed at giving her a boost, Merkel said that a "stable German government" was crucial for the EU to move forward with its reform agenda.

In November, she was left considerably weakened after her first attempt to form a new government collapsed when the pro-business FDP party walked out.

She then turned to the SPD, her outgoing governing partners with whom she hopes to form another grand coalition.

Macron, who is driving attempts to reform the EU in the wake of Britain's decision to leave the bloc, refused to be drawn into trying to predict the outcome of Sunday's vote, saying it could be "counterproductive".

But he stressed the pro-European credentials of the SPD and said the coalition blueprint showed "true European ambition".

Merkel said her CDU/CSU alliance and the SPD had a shared commitment to Europe.

Macron had made no secret of the fact that he would like to see the SPD, which is enthusiastic about his proposals for closer eurozone integration, including a common budget, remain on the front benches.

Last week he said a conservative-social democrat tie-up would be "good for Germany, good for France and above all good for Europe."

US President Donald Trump plans to meet Britain's Prime Minister Theresa May at the World Economic Forum in Davos next week, the White House said Friday.

The announcement came after Trump cancelled a planned trip to London, casting further doubt on the strength of the vaunted trans-Atlantic "special relationship."

"President Trump looks forward to having a bilateral meeting with UK Prime Minister May in Davos next week to further strengthen the US–UK special relationship," spokeswoman Sarah Sanders said.

A Downing Street spokesman confirmed that the pair would meet on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum in the Swiss Alpine resort.

May was the first world leader to visit Trump at the White House after his inauguration last year and brought with her an invitation from Queen Elizabeth II for a state visit.

Since then, however, ties have become strained and thousands of Britons have taken to social media to promise large-scale street protests if the visit goes ahead.

The latest blow to ties came on January 11 when Trump confirmed in a tweet that he had "cancelled" a visit to London during which he had been expected to open the new US embassy.

Instead, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson will on Monday head to London to visit the embassy and hold talks with his British counterpart, Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson.

Tillerson will also visit Paris before joining Trump later in the week in Davos, which is hosting its annual policy forum for the global business elite.

A State Department official, speaking on condition of anonymity, told reporters that Tillerson would use his visit to London "to reaffirm the US-UK special relationship."

"My understanding is that he will make a visit to the mission," the official said.

"I don't think that there is a ribbon-cutting or any sort of ceremony planned, in part because the facilities are still in the final phase of construction," he said.

"I think there's still quite a lot of pieces and debris in the lobby and elsewhere and it's really not the moment for a ribbon-cutting, but he is visiting the new embassy."

- 'Bad deal' -

The US embassy's move from Grosvenor Square in the West End of London near the British Government's Whitehall headquarters to Nine Elms, on the south bank of the Thames, had been planned for 10 years.

But Trump suddenly came out against the idea earlier this month in one of his trademark angry tweets -- accusing his predecessor of having overspent on an unnecessary project.

"Reason I canceled my trip to London is that I am not a big fan of the Obama Administration having sold perhaps the best located and finest embassy in London for 'peanuts,' only to build a new one in an off location for 1.2 billion dollars," he tweeted.

"Bad deal. Wanted me to cut ribbon-NO!"

But the outburst was widely interpreted as an excuse from a sensitive president fearful that his visit would trigger an embarrassing public rejection from the British public.

Trump, while a supporter of those campaigning to bring Britain out of the European Union, has offended many other Britons with what they see as his divisive rhetoric.

The president has repeatedly sparred with London's Muslim mayor, Sadiq Khan, and other British officials on Twitter, accusing them of downplaying the threat of "radical Islamic terror."

And in November last year, he won a rebuke from May herself when he retweeted three propaganda videos promoted by the far-right racist movement Britain First.

But, despite the tensions, British leaders remain very keen to preserve trans-Atlantic ties, particularly so that their impending "Brexit" from Europe will not leave them isolated.

A British teenager managed to access the communications accounts of top US intelligence and security officials including the then CIA chief John Brennan, a London court heard Friday.

Kane Gamble, now 18, was aged 15 and 16 when, from his bedroom in Coalville, central England, he managed to impersonate his targets to gain highly sensitive information.

"Kane Gamble gained access to the communications accounts of some very high-ranking US intelligence officials and government employees," prosecutor John Lloyd-Jones told England's Old Bailey central criminal court.

"He also gained access to US law enforcement and intelligence agency networks."

Gamble has admitted 10 offences against the computer misuse act, between June 2015 and February 2016, and is awaiting sentencing.

The court heard how the teenager founded the group Crackas With Attitude (CWA), who used "social engineering" -- manipulating call centres and help desks into divulging confidential information -- which they then exploited.

Gamble impersonated Brennan in calls to the telecommunications companies Verizon and AOL, although in one attempt, he stumbled on a question about Brennan's first pet.

Several sensitive documents were reportedly obtained from Brennan's private email inbox and Gamble managed to get information about military and intelligence operations in Iran and Afghanistan.

"It also seems he was able to successfully access Mr Brennan's iCloud account," the prosecutor said.

Gamble called AOL and initiated a password reset, and took control of Brennan's wife's iPad.

- 'I own you' -

Gamble also targeted the then US secretary of homeland security Jeh Johnson and made calls to his phone number.

He left Johnson's wife a voicemail saying "Am I scaring you?" and managed to get a message to appear on the family television saying: "I own you".

Other targets included the then US president Barack Obama's deputy national security adviser Avril Haines, his senior science and technology adviser John Holdren, and FBI special agent Amy Hess.

Gamble gained extensive unauthorised access to the US Department of Justice network and was able to access court case files, including on the Deepwater oil spill.

The British teenager gave some of the material he managed to access to WikiLeaks and boasted that he had a list of all Homeland Security employees.

- Clashing autism reports -

The court heard from consultant forensic psychiatrist Dr Steffan Davies, whose assessment was that Gamble did not have a full understanding of the impact of what he was doing, due to autism.

"I'm very clear that he has an autistic spectrum disorder (ASD)," he said.

"He spent most of his life in his bedroom on the internet and that is where he is getting his cues from.

"He has a very black and white understanding of what was happening, seeing it more as a video game with goodies and baddies.

"He was trying to right what he saw as an injustice."

However, another expert, Dr Philip Joseph, said he doubted Gamble was autistic.

"He's at the mild end (of the spectrum), if he's on it at all," he said.

"If he had that condition, it doesn't explain why he committed these offences."

Gamble was arrested at his home on February 9 last year at the request of the FBI.

He claimed he was motivated to act out of support for the Palestinians, and due to the United States "killing innocent civilians", the prosecutor said.

Wearing a black jacket, he spoke only to confirm his name, mumbling "yes", and sat in the court next to his mother.

He will be sentenced at a date yet to be fixed.

President Donald Trump and the Senate's top Democrat on Friday (Jan 19) both touted "progress" in 11th hour talks on breaking an impasse over spending, raising hopes that a US government shutdown could be averted.

With a midnight deadline looming to reach a short-term deal to keep the federal government running at full capacity, both Trump and Senator Chuck Schumer struck an optimistic tone.

"Excellent preliminary meeting in Oval," Trump tweeted, saying they were "working on solutions" with Republican Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and House Speaker Paul Ryan.

"Making progress - four week extension would be best!" Trump added.

But Schumer admitted that a "good number of disagreements" remain between the two sides, despite what he described as a "long and detailed meeting," at which they discussed "all of the major outstanding issues."

"The discussions will continue," the New York Democrat told reporters.

The president shelved plans to fly to Florida to celebrate the first anniversary of his inauguration at his Mar-a-Lago estate - which falls on Saturday - to remain in Washington to ride out the storm, and the possible late-night Senate votes.

"He's not leaving until this is finished," White House budget director Mick Mulvaney told reporters.

"There's a really good chance it gets fixed" before government offices open on Monday, Mulvaney added.

Trump seemed to revel in the high-stakes brinksmanship unfolding in Washington, with Senate passage of a government funding extension that was pushed through the House of Representatives on Thursday up in the air.

"Shutdown coming?" he tweeted to begin the day Friday. White House officials said he made several calls to Democrats to try to win votes before his talks with Schumer.

"Democrats are needed if it is to pass in the Senate - but they want illegal immigration and weak borders," Trump said on Twitter.

Republicans, who have a tenuous one-seat majority in the Senate, need as many as a dozen Democratic crossover votes to reach the 60 votes required for passage.

Democrats, however, appeared determined to block the measure, insisting on a deal that would protect from deportation so-called "Dreamers" - the 700,000 immigrants who entered the country illegally as children.

The House measure, which would extend federal funding until Feb 16, reauthorizes for six years a health insurance program for poor children - a long-time Democratic objective - but not the Deferred Action on Childhood Arrivals program, known as DACA, that affects Dreamers.

White House officials insisted there was no urgency to fix DACA, which expires Mar 5.

"This is purely an attempt by the Senate Democrats led by Schumer - why we call it the 'Schumer shutdown' - to try and get a shutdown the president gets blamed for," Mulvaney said.

With mid-term congressional elections looming later this year, Republicans risk being blamed by voters if the government grinds to a halt over lack of funds.

A new Washington Post/ABC poll found that 48 per cent of Americans blame Trump and the Republicans for a potential shutdown, and only 28 per cent hold Democrats responsible.

There have been four government shutdowns since 1990. In the last one in 2013, more than 800,000 government workers were put on temporary leave.

Essential functions like the military, law enforcement, the White House and Congress would continue working but with reduced staff. Some agencies would shut down altogether.

But others in the massive bureaucracy will be sent home without pay.

International ratings agency Fitch said a partial shutdown was unlikely to affect America's AAA/stable rating for US sovereign debt.

And Wall Street seemed unconcerned so far, with the S&P and Nasdaq closing at new records.

Schumer said if agreement is not reached by Friday night, Democrats would support a shorter-term funding measure that would "give the president a few days to come to the table."

McConnell said the House bill provides for four weeks of funding, enough to allow talks to continue "without throwing the government into disarray for no reason."

Negotiations with the White House on a bipartisan compromise on DACA blew up last week after Trump reportedly referred to African nations and Haiti as "shithole countries."

Trump's unpredictable Twitter outbursts and sudden changes of position also have bedeviled Republican leaders as they maneuver to cut a deal.

In the past, Schumer has described Trump as "like a Sphinx on this issue," a sentiment Republicans also appeared to share.

"We need to know where the president stands," Senator John Kennedy, a Republican from Louisiana, said on Friday on CNN.

"Let's suppose we reach an agreement with the Democrats, and I think we will - I want to know the president is going to sign it."

Pope Francis sounded a stark warning about the future of the Amazon and its peoples during a visit to the region on Friday, saying they had "never been so threatened."

In a speech to thousands of tribe members on the edge of the rainforest in Peru, he said the Amazon and its peoples bore "deep wounds."

Francis lamented "the pressure being exerted by great business interests that want to lay hands on its petroleum, gas, lumber, gold" and industrial scale farming.

He later highlighted the "endless violence" endured by the region's women.

Bare-chested tribesmen, their bodies painted and their heads crowned with colorful feathers, danced and sang for the pope when he arrived in the Peruvian city of Puerto Maldonado.

Thousands of indigenous people had traveled to meet the pontiff from throughout the Amazon basin region of Peru, Brazil and Bolivia.

"We ask you to defend us," said Yesica Patiachi, a representative of the Harakbut people -- one of 23 indigenous peoples specifically mentioned in the pope's greeting at the start of the meeting. "If they take away our land, we can disappear."

- 'Our land was beautiful' -

"I'm 67, I remember that our land was beautiful, with abundant plants and fish," said Luzmila Bermejo of the Awajun people. "The oil, forestry and mining groups came... all of this polluted and weakened us."

Members of one of the tribes presented the leader of the world's 1.2 billion Catholics with a bow and arrow in a symbolic gesture aimed at urging him to help defend their land rights.

"The native Amazonian peoples have probably never been so threatened on their own lands as they are at present," said the pope, who appeared visibly moved by the reception.

"Amazonia is being disputed on various fronts," he said.

"The problems strangle her peoples and provoke the migration of the young due to the lack of local alternatives.

"We have to break with the historical paradigm that views Amazonia as an inexhaustible source of supplies for other countries without concern for its inhabitants."

The Amazon region will be the focal point of a world bishops' meeting, or synod, to take place in October 2019.

Local tribal leaders and conservationists are increasingly concerned about rampant illegal gold mining and logging that have devastated ancestral lands.

The pope later received a raucous welcome when he visited a shelter for vulnerable children and adolescents, victims of physical, sexual or psychological abuse.

"The world needs you, young men and women of the first peoples, and it needs you as you are," he told them.

Francis encouraged them to study, so as not to be "content to be the last car on the train of society, letting yourselves be pulled along and eventually disconnected. We need you to be the engine, always pressing forward."

Returning to Lima in the afternoon, the Argentine pontiff hit out against corruption in a speech to dignitaries at government headquarters, where his audience included President Pedro Pablo Kuczynsky.

"How much evil is done to our Latin American people and the democracies of this continent by this social 'virus', a phenomenon that infects everything, with the greatest harm being done to the poor and mother earth," said Francis.

On Saturday he is scheduled to visit the northern city of Trujillo, where floods killed more than 130 people, and speak about climate change.

He will fly back to Rome on Sunday after mass at an air base.

- Protests in Chile -

The pontiff, 81, arrived Thursday afternoon in Peru, the second and last leg of a week-long South American visit.

During the first part of his visit, in Chile, Francis highlighted the plight of vulnerable immigrants, offered an apology to victims of sexual abuse by Catholic priests, prayed with survivors of Augusto Pinochet's brutal dictatorship, and called for protection of Chile's persecuted indigenous communities.

Before his visit to Chile, the US-based NGO Bishop Accountability said that almost 80 members of the Roman Catholic clergy had been accused of sexually abusing children in Chile since 2000.

At the pope's first public mass in Santiago on Tuesday, he faced protests over the church's handling of decades of sexual abuse.

Scuffles broke out between riot police and demonstrators near O'Higgins Park, and police used water cannons on protesters. More than 50 people were arrested, authorities said.

At the end of his visit, he robustly defended a Chilean bishop, Juan Barros, who is accused of covering up the sexual abuse of minors by another priest.

Turkey on Friday started fresh shelling of the Syrian town of Afrin in a move to oust a US-backed Kurdish militia that Ankara considers "terrorists" and vowed to press on with a full-scale operation against them.

The Turkish government has repeatedly warned it will strike Syrian towns controlled by the Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG) militia, including Afrin, after the US said it was training a 30,000-strong border force there.

"The Afrin operation will take place," Defence Minister Nurettin Canikli told A Haber television.

"The presence of all the terror lines in northern Syria will be removed. There's no other way out," he said.

Turkish troops fired on several YPG targets in Afrin to prevent the formation of a "terror corridor" on the border, the state-run Anadolu news agency reported.

Army howitzers in the frontier Hatay province launched at least 10 rounds of artillery fire, targeting the "terror nests of the terror organisation in Afrin," Anadolu said.

A military convoy of 20 buses carrying Syrian opposition rebels backed by Ankara also crossed over into Syria through the Oncupinar border crossing in the Kilis province, Turkish media reported.

Separately, around 30 buses full of Syrian fighters headed towards the Cilvegozu border crossing in the town of Reyhanli, an AFP photographer said.

- 'De facto start'-

Canikli said with the shelling "in fact, the operation has de facto started."

Asked about the timing of a ground incursion, Canikli said: "It could be tomorrow, it could be in the evening. What we say is that this operation will take place."

Syria's deputy foreign minister Faisal Mekdad warned on Thursday that the Syrian air force could destroy any Turkish warplanes used in a threatened assault on the war-torn country.

The YPG is a major bone of contention in ties between Turkey and the US which considers it a key ally in fighting IS.

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan had reacted with fury to the announcement of the US-backed border force, denouncing it as an "army of terror".

The Pentagon said it does not plan to create an "army" and that the force is aimed at fighters from the Islamic State group and maintaining stability in areas recaptured from the jihadists.

Ankara however said it was not satisfied with the US assurances.

Turkey accuses the YPG of being a branch of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) that has waged an insurgency in its southeast since 1984.

Meanwhile, mortar fire on the Syrian town of Azaz just across the border from Turkey and held by Turkish-backed rebels wounded at least 14 people in a psychiatric hospital, a monitor said on Friday.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based monitor of the war, said the mortar rounds on Thursday were fired by the Syrian Democratic Forces, a US-backed alliance dominated by the YPG.

The Turkish army condemned the mortar fire and said wounded civilians were also taken across the border into Turkey for treatment.

Analysts say Turkey needs the green light from Russia for a full cross-border operation because of Moscow's military presence in the area.

In a surprise development, Turkey's army chief General Hulusi Akar and spy chief Hakan Fidan were in Moscow on Thursday for talks with Russian counterparts on security issues and Syria.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov on Friday ruled out the possibility of salvaging the Iranian nuclear deal if President Donald Trump decides to pull the United States out of the agreement.

"This agreement cannot be implemented if one of the participants unilaterally steps out of it," Lavrov told a news conference at the United Nations.

"It will fall apart and there will be no deal then," he said, adding: "I think everyone understands that."

Trump last week agreed to again waive US nuclear-related sanctions on Iran, but demanded that US lawmakers and European allies fix the "disastrous flaws" in the deal or face a US exit.

"This is a decisive moment," Lavrov said.

Russia and the United States are among the six world powers that signed the 2015 landmark deal with Iran that aims to curb Tehran's nuclear program in exchange for lifting sanctions.

Lavrov made clear that there would be no attempt by Russia to salvage it with the five remaining powers, if the United States pulls out.

Russia will make every effort to persuade the United States "not to touch this thing," said Lavrov, saying that the deal was "not dead yet."

The foreign minister again made the argument that killing off the Iran nuclear deal would also compromise any bid to persuade North Korea to scrap its nuclear arsenal.

If the Iranian nuclear deal is not upheld, "how can we ask North Korea to use the same option" and abandon its nuclear ambitions, asked Lavrov.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres told the Security Council this week that it was in the world's interest that the nuclear agreement "be preserved."

The number of civilians killed by the US-led coalition fighting the Islamic State group in Iraq and Syria tripled in 2017, as battles raged in jihadist-held urban areas, a monitor said Friday.

Between 3,923 and 6,102 non-combatants were killed in the two countries, said Airwars, a London-based journalist collective that compiles data from public sources.

That is sharply up from its estimate of the previous year's toll of between 1,243 and 1,904.

The coalition backed Iraqi forces in a gruelling battle last year to oust IS from second city Mosul, as well as supporting a Kurdish-dominated force that seized Syria's Raqa city from the jihadists after months of fighting.

Airwars said the surge in deaths was likely partly caused by intense fighting in urban areas.

But it also said the administration of US President Donald Trump may be partly to blame.

"This toll coincided with the start of the Trump presidency, which has declared the conflict against ISIS to be a 'war of annihilation'," it said, using an alternative name for IS.

"The scaling back by the new administration of some measures aimed at protecting civilians" may have contributed to the "steep increase" in casualties, it said.

Airwars said the coalition had carried out some 11,573 artillery and air strikes, some 50 percent up on the previous year. More than 70 percent were in Syria.

It said 766 attacks last year wounded some 2,443 civilians in both countries.

The monitor, which also tracks casualties of Russian operations in Syria, said coalition-linked civilian deaths in 2017 had "far" outnumbered those attributed to Russia.

It said the toll for civilians killed in coalition strikes in Syria had quadrupled compared to 2016, with the battle for Raqa killing at least 1,450 civilians, while in Iraq deaths were up by 87 percent.

Between the start of the battle for Mosul in October 2016 and the announcement of its "liberation" in July, between 1,066 and 1,579 civilians were killed by coalition raids there, Airwars said.

Intensified hostilities in Yemen have forced more than 32,000 people to flee their homes in the past two months, the United Nations refugee agency has said.

They join some two million Yemenis already displaced by the war, the UNHCR said in a statement on Thursday.

"The arrival of winter in Yemen, when temperatures can dip below zero degrees Celsius across a number of governorates, has worsened the hardship for many, particularly those displaced and living in informal settlements exposed to the elements with little protection against the cold," it said.

UNHCR spokeswoman Shabia Mantoo said flare-ups in fighting in the rebel-held capital Sanaa, as well as the provinces of Hodeida on the Red Sea and oil-rich Shabwa in the south, had driven the displacements.

"We continue to see correlations between intensified hostilities and civilian casualties + displacement," Mantoo said on Twitter Friday.

More than 9,000 people have been killed in Yemen since a Saudi-led military coalition intervened in 2015 against the Huthi rebels with the aim of restoring the country's internationally recognised government to power.

The coalition intensified its air campaign against the Huthis around Sanaa and on the country's west coast in December, after Saudi Arabia intercepted a ballistic missile the rebels had fired at its capital Riyadh.

On the ground, Emirati-trained government troops and coalition forces have been advancing along the Red Sea coast in a drive to retake the rebel-held port city of Hodeida, which is a key entry point for humanitarian supplies.

But the coalition has met strong resistance from the Iran-backed rebels, who continue to hold Sanaa and most of northern Yemen.

In mid-December, government forces retook Beihan district in Shabwa province from the Huthis, their last stronghold in the province.

"The latest violence has further exacerbated the world's worst humanitarian crisis, with more than 22 million people -– around three quarters of the total population –- in need of humanitarian assistance," the UNHCR said.

Lebanon's Hezbollah movement on Friday said a US pledge to keep its troops in Syria to defeat the Islamic State group was just a "flimsy excuse" to occupy the country.

US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said Wednesday that US forces would remain in Syria to both fight IS and counter the influence of President Bashar al-Assad.

Assad is a key ally of the Iranian-backed Hezbollah, which has deployed its forces to keep the Damascus regime in power.

During a televised address to commemorate Hezbollah fighters killed in Syria, the group's chief Hassan Nasrallah fired back at the US.

"The Americans are the last people to have anything to do with rolling back Daesh," he said, using the Arabic acronym for IS.

The US, according to the Hezbollah leader, was "creating flimsy excuses to keep their forces and bases in the region. This is the real aim."

The United States has deployed around 2,000 ground troops to Syria and its warplanes patrol the skies over the east of the country, hunting IS remnants.

In a speech on Wednesday at Stanford University, Tillerson said the US "will maintain a military presence in Syria, focused on ensuring that ISIS cannot re-emerge".

But he also said the open-ended deployment is intended to help create conditions for Syrians to be able to remove Assad from office and reject Iranian influence.

The US has long considered Hezbollah a "terrorist" organisation and has targeted it with sanctions.

Last week, the US Justice Department announced it was also creating a special task force to investigate Hezbollah's alleged involvement in the international drug trade.

Current and former US officials have described a massive money-laundering operation involving drugs and used cars that they say has helped Hezbollah fund its operations.

But Nasrallah vehemently denied the claims on Friday.

"These are unjust accusations, that are not based on facts or truth," he said.

"Hezbollah has a very clear religious, jurisprudent, moral position on this. For us, dealing drugs is forbidden (in Islam) and not allowed," Nasrallah said.

He accused American security services and the CIA of "destroying societies" by spreading drug use abroad.

"Have a committee investigate your own involvement," Nasrallah said.

Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi said Friday he would stand in a presidential election due to take place in March.

"I announce to you in the honesty and transparency which we are used to... my candidacy for the post of president of the republic," Sisi said at a conference in Cairo, broadcast live on state television.

Sisi is widely expected to win in the first round, set for March 26-28.

Egypt's former army chief, Sisi was elected in 2014, a year after leading the military's ouster of his predecessor Mohamed Morsi amid mass protests against the Islamist's year-long rule.

That was followed by a crackdown against thousands of Morsi supporters who demonstrated for weeks to demand his reinstatement.

In August 2013, security forces stormed a sit-in to disperse protesters, killing hundreds within hours and arresting thousands.

Egypt has since faced a string of deadly jihadist attacks, particularly in North Sinai, where an Islamic State group affiliate led what became a full-fledged insurgency following Morsi's ouster.

Sisi announced his candidacy Friday during the final segment of a three-day conference named "Story of a Nation" which showcased his accomplishments during his first term.

He said he had "done all I could".

"Regardless of who your vote will be for, all that I wish of you (is that you) show the world your participation in the elections and choose whoever you wish to," said Sisi.

The conference saw ministers and members of the public discuss issues including completed infrastructure projects, the military's counter-terrorism efforts, foreign policy and the war on drugs.

- Who will stand? -

So far, two prominent potential candidates have announced that they will not take part in the poll.

Former prime minister Ahmed Shafiq, who had been seen as a major rival to Sisi, said on January 7 that he would not be a candidate, reversing a pledge he made from the United Arab Emirates in November.

Shafiq had disappeared for 24 hours after being deported to Egypt last month following years in exile in the UAE.

On Monday, Mohamed Anwar Sadat, a dissident and nephew of Egypt's late president of the same name, announced he would not run in the poll because the climate was not right for free elections.

Other potential candidates include Khaled Ali, a rights lawyer and 2012 presidential candidate who challenged the government over Egypt's controversial transfer of two Red Sea islands to Saudi Arabia.

It remains unclear whether he will stand, as he was sentenced in absentia in September to three months in jail on accusations of "offending public decency", a ruling he appealed.

Ali said only the committee organising the election could decide whether that disqualified him as a candidate.

Separately, military Colonel Ahmed Konsowa was sentenced by a military court in December to six years in jail after he announced his intention to stand.

The head of Egypt's Zamalek football club, Mortada Mansour, said on Saturday he would put forward his candidacy.

Campaigning for the election begins on February 24 and will last until March 23.

The National Elections Authority will accept applications between January 20 and 29 from presidential hopefuls who are collecting the required number of signatures to stand.

French President Emmanuel Macron said Friday that the Islamic State group in Syria and Iraq would be defeated militarily "in the coming weeks," as he laid out plans for bolstering France's defence capabilities.

"Today, thanks to the efforts of all the nations involved, the Daesh military organisation in the Levant is almost completely defeated," Macron said in a speech aboard a helicopter carrier in the southern port of Toulon, using an Arabic acronym for IS.

"I'm confident that in the coming weeks we will achieve a military victory on the ground," he said.

"I want us now to firmly commit with our partners to stabilisation, reconstruction and aide to populations" after years of conflict, he said.

With many of its leaders dead and its fighters on the run, IS has now lost almost all the land it once controlled in Syria and Iraq.

France, which recently pulled out two of the 12 Rafale fighter jets it had been operating in the region, currently has about 1,200 personnel in the international coalition fighting the militants.

Macron said that although combat operations would continue, the country would "adapt" its contribution this year to developments, without providing details.

The French government has increased the 2018 defence budget by 1.8 billion euros, bringing it to 34.2 billion euros ($42 billion).

Macron reiterated his pledge to lift French defence spending to two percent of the country's GDP by 2025, in line with the target agreed to by NATO members in 2014.

The increased spending will include a "renewal" of France's nuclear arsenal during his five-year term, Macron said, calling nuclear deterrence "the keystone of our defence strategy for the past 50 years."

British police said Thursday they are investigating a man over a third sexual assault, with the Press Association news agency reporting that US actor Kevin Stacey is the suspected assailant.

The assault allegedly occurred in central London in 2005, during Spacey's 11-year tenure at The Old Vic theatre in the British capital.

"On 13 December we received an allegation that the man sexually assaulted a man (Victim 3) in 2005 in Westminster," a Metropolitan Police spokeswoman told AFP on Thursday.

The force does not name people before they are charged with a crime, but the Press Association said the accused was the same man from earlier complaints.

The other two alleged victims said they were assaulted in 2005 and 2008 in the Lambeth area of the city where The Old Vic is located.

They came forward in the wake of the Hollywood scandal which erupted last year after numerous claims of sexual assault and harassment were made against mogul Harvey Weinstein.

Spacey has since faced a series of abuse allegations, prompting The Old Vic to launch an investigation into the actor's tenure at the theatre between 2004 and 2015.

A total of 20 claims of inappropriate behaviour were received, covering a broader period of 1995 to 2013, and have not been verified.

Robert Redford said Thursday the #MeToo and Time's Up movements were a "tipping point" that would change Hollywood in favor of women's equality and intolerance for sexual misconduct.

"From my standpoint, change is inevitable and change is going to come... I'm pretty encouraged right now," the 81-year-old double Oscar-winner told a news conference launching his annual Sundance Film Festival.

"What it's doing is bringing forth more opportunities for women and more opportunities for women in film to have their own voices heard and do their own projects. I'm pretty excited by that," he said.

Redford said that as women were pushing back against harassment and demanding equal pay they were forcing the traditional male powerbrokers in the film industry to make changes.

"It's kind of a tipping point because it's changing the order of things, so women are going to have a stronger voice," he told reporters as he kicked off the annual showcase for independent films at the ski resort of Park City, Utah.

Sundance is the first major film festival since scores of women came forward in October to accuse movie mogul Harvey Weinstein -- an independent film specialist and a supporter of the 10-day event -- of harassment and abuse.

In the following weeks numerous high-profile figures including Kevin Spacey, Brett Ratner, Dustin Hoffman and Louis C.K. have faced a flood of allegations of sexual misconduct.

- 'Sickened' -

The festival, which runs through January 28, will shine the spotlight on more than 100 independent features, most of them world premieres including many from newcomers trying to make their mark.

The #MeToo movement against sexual misconduct has particular resonance at Sundance as it has been spearheaded by actress Rose McGowan, who accused Weinstein of attacking her at the 1997 edition of the festival.

Weinstein was considered a titan of independent film and greatly influential in getting smaller features funding and distribution -- not to mention a front row seat in the Oscars conversation.

But Redford described the veteran producer as "a moment in time" that the indie sector would move past, adding that his backing of Sundance was motivated by financial self-interest.

Sundance Institute executive director Keri Putnam said she was "sickened" to learn that at least two of the allegations against Weinstein related to his behavior at Sundance.

Although Redford has always insisted that Sundance organizers are above politics, this year's festival continues the tradition of filmmakers using their platform in Park City to highlight the issues of the day.

Among the most hotly anticipated entries, Jennifer Fox's "The Tale" stars Laura Dern as a woman forced to confront a sexual relationship she had at age 13 with two adults coaches.

- 'Fake news' -

"Seeing Allred" profiles Gloria Allred, the New York lawyer who has made her name representing women in sexual abuse cases, while "RBG" focuses on Ruth Bader Ginsburg, one of three female justices on the US Supreme Court.

Offscreen, organizers of last year's Women's March are staging a Respect Rally on Saturday, with speakers set to include Allred and Jane Fonda, whose documentary "Jane Fonda in Five Acts" gets its world premiere at Sundance.

Meanwhile, Morgan Spurlock's "Super Size Me 2" was dropped from the schedule after he admitted sexual misconduct on Twitter.

The panelists were pressed during the hour-long discussion for their views on President Donald Trump's controversial labelling of media coverage he doesn't like as "fake news."

"Journalism is a big deal for me and it always seems to be under threat periodically" said Redford, who famously played investigative reporter Bob Woodward in Watergate thriller "All the President's Men" (1976).

"Something comes up and then dies down, comes up and dies down. Journalism is our means of getting to the truth, and I think getting to the truth is getting harder and harder in this climate."

Japan's Olympic chief has slammed a top canoeist for spiking a rival's drink with a banned substance to scuttle his Tokyo 2020 selection hopes, describing his act as "unthinkable".

The Japan Anti-doping Agency last week banned Yasuhiro Suzuki for eight years for putting a prohibited muscle-boosting agent into the drink bottle of fellow sprint canoeist Seiji Komatsu during a domestic competition last September.

Canoe officials branded Suzuki's actions "evil" and Japan Olympic Committee (JOC) president Tsunekazu Takeda also blasted the disgraced athlete Friday, accusing him of bringing shame on Japan before next month's Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang.

"For a scandal like this to break as we head to Pyeongchang is extremely sad," Takeda told AFP.

"It was an unthinkable act and totally goes against the spirit of the Olympics. It's a real shame and we cannot afford to let this kind of thing happen ever again."

Suzuki admitted to spiking the drink after receiving an intensive anti-doping lecture during a training camp, according to the federation.

"We meet top athletes regularly to teach them the importance of maintaining their credibility and still this has happened," said Takeda.

"I met with all the Olympic organisations yesterday and called for them to go back to the drawing board and make sure this doesn't happen again."

The Japan Canoe Federation could still impose a life ban on Suzuki, 32, citing a history of sabotaging rivals, sometimes by stealing their equipment.

Komatsu won the race in September but was later provisionally suspended after he tested positive for the drug, which he strenuously denied using. His suspension has now been lifted.

Both Suzuki and Komatsu were among the top candidates to represent Japan at the forthcoming 2020 Olympics.

South Korea's prime minister apologised Friday for suggesting the country's women's ice hockey team had no chance of a medal at the Winter Olympics in an unsuccessful attempt to dampen criticism over a unified team with the North.

The two Koreas agreed this week to field a unified women's ice hockey side at the Games, which begin in Pyeongchang next month.

It came after Pyongyang agreed to attend what organisers and Seoul have sought to proclaim a "peace Olympics", easing tensions over the nuclear-armed North's weapons programme.

But critics in the South said a unified team would disrupt the side and deprive some Southern squad members of the chance to play on the Olympic stage.

South Korea qualified for the women's ice hockey tournament as hosts, rather than on merit, and Prime Minister Lee Nak-Yon said Tuesday that the team was out of medal contention, with the South ranked 22nd in the world and the North 25th.

"I've heard our team's ultimate goal was to win just one or two games," he said then, adding: "Athletes are also in favour of bringing in a few good players from the North to enhance competence."

In the face of widespread public criticism, Lee apologised Friday to those who were hurt by the remarks.

"I acknowledge that my remarks had room for misunderstanding," he said at an annual policy briefing.

Another element of the agreement causing controversy in the South is that the two Koreas would march together at the opening and closing ceremonies under a unification flag.

A Realmeter poll released Thursday showed only 40.5 percent of South Koreans supported this.

A larger share -- 49.4 percent -- were in favour of the neighbours holding their own national flags.

- 'Lot of negativity' -

The presidential Blue House website has been flooded with petitions against forming a unified team. "Athletes should not be sacrificed for political reasons," read one.

Kim Se-Hyung, who plays with the Korea University ice hockey team and whose sister is on the national team, said the intentions behind the move were good, but because "we think in an athlete's way, we have a lot of negativity towards it".

It might help North-South relations, he told AFP, "but it is something really small that won't really affect anything. I hope they can think about our players."

Seoul has suggested expanding the ice hockey team roster to accommodate North Korean players, but other countries are likely to see that as conferring an unfair advantage.

The International Olympic Committee, which has the ultimate say on Games matters, is set to finalise the arrangements in talks with both Koreas in Lausanne on Saturday.

Trains on Germany's intercity lines began running early Friday, a day after being suspended as violent gales battered northern Europe, killing at least six people across the country.
In the south, the high-speed ICE trains were running as normal on Friday morning, although the service in the rest of the country remained subject to major disruptions, rail operator Deutsche Bahn said.
The company had on Thursday suspended all high-speed services due to storm Friedericke in the first such stoppage since 2007 when major gales battered the country.
By the end of the morning, trains should be running to all the main cities, Deutsche Bahn said, with the service expected to be back to normal by the weekend.
Regional train services were also disrupted on Friday, particularly in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany's most populous state.Hundreds of rail staff worked through the night to clear the tracks of branches and trees, many of which were uprooted by the force of the storm which saw winds of up to 130 kilometres per hour (80 miles per hour) while others worked to repair damage to the lines, it said.
The huge storm caused nine deaths in northern Europe and left air and rail traffic in chaos.

Catalonia's former leader Carles Puigdemont, who was sacked by Madrid over his attempt to break from Spain, said Friday he can govern the region from Belgium where he is in self-imposed exile as he eyes a comeback after scoring big in elections.

"There are only two options: in prison I would not be able to address people, write, meet people," Puigdemont, who risks arrest on charges of rebellion, sedition and misuse of public funds if he returns to Spain, told Catalunya Radio.

"The only way is to continue doing it freely and safely."

"Nowadays big business, academic and research projects are essentially managed using new technology," he added.

His comments came as Catalonia's new parliamentary speaker, Roger Torrent from the pro-independence ERC party, held talks with party representatives to pick a candidate for the regional presidency.

Puigdemont, who was sacked along with his cabinet on October 27 after the regional parliament declared independence, is the only candidate from Catalonia's separatist grouping to lead the region.

And given pro-independence parties won an absolute majority in elections on December 21, he in theory stands a good chance to be voted in at a parliamentary session due by the end of the month.

- Plan to 'restore policies' -

But there is a huge stumbling block in the way: he is in Belgium and won't come back to Spain.

The Catalan parliament's legal experts say the contender has to be physically present.

But Puigdemont insists he has the legitimate mandate of the people to rule after his Together for Catalonia list won the most votes within the separatist camp in the elections.

He wants to present his candidacy and government programme to parliament -- a prerequisite to being voted in -- remotely via videolink or by having someone else read it for him.

The central government in Madrid, though, has warned it will take the matter to court and keep direct control over Catalonia if Puigdemont tries to govern from Belgium.

"To persist in this way is not the solution, to the contrary, it is a bad idea," government spokesman Inigo Mendez said.

Ultimately, it will be up to Torrent and his deputies -- three of whom are pro-independence and three others against it -- to decide whether to allow lawmakers to vote for a president even if he is not present.

On Monday, Puigdemont will take part in a debate at the University of Copenhagen - his first public trip since fleeing Spain.

His visit to Denmark could help avoid problems in Belgium, where European citizens can live without a residency permit for three months, after which they theoretically have to leave. If they return they can stay another three months.

In the interview, Puigdemont said he wanted to reinstate his sacked government as well as its policies, marked by disobedience towards Spanish courts and a failed strategy to break from Spain while he was president.

"We have a plan to restore democracy, the institutions and policies," he said.

"The result of these elections validate our government programme."

Madrid's direct rule, imposed after the independence declaration, has caused resentment in a region that had enjoyed considerable autonomy before its leaders attempted to break away from Spain.

According to Economy Minister Luis de Guindos, the secession crisis -- that kicked off in earnest on October 1 when Catalan leaders held an independence referendum despite a court ban -- has taken a financial toll.

He has said the crisis has slowed economic growth in the region at an estimated cost of one billion euros ($1.2 billion).

More than 3,000 companies have moved their legal headquarters out of the region as uncertainty persists.

Author Peter Mayle, who launched many an expatriate dream with his best-selling memoir A Year in Provence, has died at age 78, his publisher, Knopf, said.

Mayle died early Thursday at a hospital near his home in Provence after a brief illness.

Mayle, who was English, began his career in advertising. A move to the south of France inspired his book A Year in Provence, in which he recounted what it was like to move to a 200-year-old farmhouse in Lubéron with his wife and two large dogs and enjoy the good life. The book was published in the U.S. by Knopf in 1990.

Mayle also wrote fiction, and his most recent book, The Diamond Caper, was published in 2015. His other titles include Acquired Tastes, The Corsican Caper and French Lessons: Adventures With Knife, Fork, and Corkscrew.He received the Légion d’Honneur from the French government for his cultural contributions.

A Year in Provence was turned into a TV series in 1993, and Mayle’s novel A Good Year became a 2006 movie starring Russell Crowe.

An Iraqi teenager on Friday pleaded not guilty to allegations he was behind the attempted bombing of a London underground train last year which left 30 people injured.

Ahmed Hassan, 18, is facing charges of attempted murder and causing an explosion over the September 15 attack at Parsons Green station.

Wearing a purple jumper, Hassan appeared at the London court by video link from prison.

The blast, which occurred during rush hour, inflicted flash burns on passengers, while others were injured in the subsequent panic to escape the packed London Underground train.

Thirty people were treated in hospital following the explosion, which could have had a far more devastating impact but failed to detonate correctly.

The device had been placed in a plastic bag and contained hundreds of grams of explosives, as well as metal shrapnel including knives and screws, a prosecutor said during an earlier court hearing.

The bombing at Parsons Green, a quiet and wealthy neighbourhood, was Britain's fifth terror attack in six months and was claimed by the Islamic State group.

Hassan was arrested a day after the bombing when he was recognised by an officer at the southeastern ferry port of Dover.

He had been living in Surrey just south of London and has said his parents were killed in Iraq.

The two-week trial is due to start on March 5, after a further hearing scheduled for February 23.

German insurers estimated Friday that ferocious gales that battered Germany caused 500 million euros ($614 million) in damages, as the number of dead across the country rose to eight.

Trains on Germany's intercity lines gradually resumed operation a day after they were suspended due to the hurricane-force winds which caused transport chaos across northern Europe.

Two more people were reported killed in the worst storm to strike Germany in a decade, adding to an earlier toll of six which included two firefighters responding to emergency calls.

A 64-year-old man fell eight metres (26 feet) while he was working to secure the roof of a house. He later died in hospital, police from the eastern state of Saxony-Anhalt said.

Another man, 34, also succumbed to his injuries after he was crushed by a falling tree, police said.

The huge storm caused another three deaths elsewhere in northern Europe and left air and rail traffic in chaos.

In southern Germany, high-speed ICE trains were running as normal on Friday morning, although the service in the rest of the country remained subject to major disruptions, rail operator Deutsche Bahn said.

The company had on Thursday suspended all high-speed services due to storm Friederike -- the first such stoppage since 2007, when major gales battered the country.

- Baby in storm -

By the end of the morning, trains should be running to all the main cities, Deutsche Bahn said, with the service expected to be back to normal by the weekend.

Regional train services were also disrupted on Friday, particularly in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany's most populous state.

Hundreds of rail staff worked through the night to clear the tracks of fallen branches and trees.

Many trees were uprooted by the force of the storm which saw winds of up to 130 kilometres per hour (80 miles per hour) while others worked to repair damage to the lines, it said.

The German Insurance Association said 500 million euros of damage was caused by the country's worst storm in more than a decade, although it was only a quarter of that inflicted by another deadly tempest in 2007, which cost some two billion euros.

Separately, Dutch insurers reported 90 million euros in damages across The Netherlands, where train services were on Friday also slowly creaking back into gear.

"According to our first estimates, the damage to homes and cars is at least 90 million euros," the Dutch Association of Insurers said.

But it said it had yet to add in the cost to businesses, government buildings and the agriculture sector.

The Netherlands bore the initial brunt of Thursday's severe storms which slammed in with winds of up to 140 kilometres (86 miles) an hour off the North Sea before barrelling across northern Europe.

On a lighter note, a baby boy was born in his parents' car in the western city of Cologne as they were caught up in the traffic chaos unleashed by storm, city authorities said.

The couple have called him Anton.

India's top court on Friday upheld the acquittal of a Bollywood director accused of raping an American research scholar in a case that has sparked intense debate about consent in a country with high levels of sexual violence.

Mahmood Farooqui was initially found guilty of rape in 2016, but the Delhi high court last year overturned the conviction on appeal, ruling the incident had been consensual.

One of the judges hearing that appeal said Farooqui may not have been aware that the woman had not consented to sex, a comment that attracted fierce criticism from rights activists.

"In cases where the parties are known to each other, it could be really difficult to decipher whether a feeble 'no' – little or no resistance – actually amounts to denial of consent," said Justice Ashutosh Kumar.

The alleged victim sought to appeal, but the Supreme Court on Friday dismissed her plea, saying the acquittal had been sound.

"The high court judgement is well written. It does not require our interference," said S.A. Bobde, one of the judges hearing the case.

Activist Kavita Krishnan said Friday's ruling was a "betrayal of women's rights" and of the new, tougher laws on sexual violence introduced after the fatal gang rape of a Delhi student in 2012.

"If you made a drink for a man, our Supreme Court thinks your No can then be read as Yes," tweeted Krishnan, secretary of the All India Progressive Women's Association.

"SC refusal to even admit the plea against atrocious 'Feeble No' verdict is a betrayal of women's rights and of the 2013 rape law."

The case dates back to 2015 when the scholar had travelled to India to seek Farooqui's assistance with her research.

She travelled home to the US shortly afterwards but returned to India to report the matter to police.

India has a grim record of sexual crimes against women, with nearly 39,000 rape cases reported in 2016, according to government data.

The 2012 Delhi gang rape sparked mass protests and led to an overhaul of rape laws that increased penalties for offenders and accelerated trials through courts.

But activists say much more needs to be done.

Russian President Vladimir Putin along with millions of Orthodox believers braved freezing temperatures to take a barechested plunge into icy water in a traditional ritual marking the baptism of Jesus.

Surrounded by Orthodox priests and glittering religious icons, and with the temperature hovering around minus 5 degrees Celsius (23 Fahrenheit), Putin lowered himself into waters of Lake Seliger some 350 kilometres (220 miles) northwest of Moscow.

Many other Russians followed suit, submerging themselves in lakes and rivers in a widely-observed ritual normally taking place on January 18 and 19 that last year saw two million people take the plunge.

The president marched over the ice covering the lake wrapped in a cream sheepskin coat and wearing traditional knee-high felt boots as priests chanted and waved an incense lamp, in footage shown on state television.

Asked by a journalist: "Is it cold?" Putin braved it out: "No, it's great."

Then wearing just swimming trunks, he lowered himself into a hole cut in the ice, puffing slightly and crossing himself, a crucifix hanging around his neck. He then held his nose and immersed himself fully.

It was the first time the 65-year-old, who regularly poses barechested on wilderness expeditions, publicly took part in the ritual.

However, his spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that Putin "has been plunging into an ice hole for a number of years now," quoted by TASS state news agency.

Putin's latest macho exploit comes as he bids for a fourth Kremlin term in March polls.

Amid a chill in relations with Washington, it was an opportunity for the strongman to show off his fitness as US counterpart Donald Trump faces questions over his waistline.

- 'Extreme temperatures' -

The Russian Orthodox Church does not require believers to go through the gruelling experience, which is more of a popular tradition.

Participants are supposed to immerse themselves three times -- in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit -- to remember the baptism of Jesus in the River Jordan.

To mark the occasion, Orthodox priests also go out to bless rivers and reservoirs and even seas such as the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea. Orthodox Christians believe the water temporarily becomes purified and has healing qualities.

In some areas with extreme temperatures -- parts of Siberia dropped to minus 68 degrees Celsius (minus 90 Fahrenheit) -- local authorities banned the icy plunges.

In Norilsk, a Siberian city beyond the Arctic Circle, local authorities on Thursday banned bathing "to avoid frostbite and emergency situations" as temperatures in some areas hit minus 52 Celsius and strong winds whipped up a blizzard.

A Taiwanese businessman who has been investigated and sanctioned by authorities on suspicion of selling oil to North Korea attempted suicide on Friday, prosecutors said.

Chen Shih-hsien was rushed to hospital in southern Kaohsiung city where he lives and was later discharged.

"We are aware of Chen's attempted suicide. We will consider his health state before deciding on the date for his next questioning," said Ke Kuang-hui, a spokesman for the Kaohsiung district prosecutor's office.

An emotional Chen, sitting in a wheelchair, told reporters as he was leaving the hospital that he was "framed by China", according to Central News Agency.

"I would not do business with North Korea," he was quoted by the agency as saying.

Taiwan's justice ministry last week announced a ban on all financial dealings with Chen and froze his companies' bank accounts due to the ongoing investigation into his activities.

Chen is being probed over links to a Hong Kong-registered ship that Seoul has said it detained in November.

The ship, known as the Lighthouse Winmore, is suspected of transferring oil products to a North Korean vessel and breaching UN sanctions against the nuclear-armed regime.

Chen is under investigation for making a false declaration that a ship he chartered was bound for Hong Kong when it actually sailed to international waters to sell oil, according to prosecutors.

He has told prosecutors that he did not know the oil products were bound for a North Korean vessel, sources told AFP.

Local media said the ship he chartered was the Lighthouse Winmore and that Chen sold oil products through "a Chinese middleman".

The Lighthouse Winmore was impounded in November by South Korean authorities after it allegedly transferred 600 tonnes of oil to a North Korean vessel, according to Seoul.

It was chartered by the Billions Bunker Group, which is incorporated in the Marshall Islands and cannot be traced directly to Chen.

But Taiwanese authorities found him to be the sole shareholder of another company with a similar name, Bunker's Taiwan Group, incorporated in the British Virgin Islands.

Taiwan has slapped sanctions on both firms.

Two other entities backed by Chen were also sanctioned by Taiwan under terrorism financing prevention laws.

Chen is currently on bail and has not yet been formally charged.

The US had previously asked the United Nations Security Council to blacklist 10 ships -- including the Lighthouse Winmore -- for violating sanctions against the North.

Taiwan announced in September it was banning all trade activities with North Korea.

Jordan said on Thursday that Israel had formally apologized for the deaths of two of its citizens killed by an Israeli security guard last July in an incident that soured ties and led to the closure of the Israeli embassy in Amman, state media said.

Government spokesman Mohammad al Momani was quoted by state news agency Petra as saying the Israeli foreign ministry had sent a memorandum expressing "deep regrets and apologies" over the incident at the embassy and pledging to take legal action in the case.

Jordan had said it would not allow Israel to reopen its embassy in Amman until it launched legal proceedings against the security guard.

The Israeli prime minister's office said on Thursday that the embassy in Amman would resume full operations immediately.The handling of the shooting had tested ties between Israel and Jordan, one of only two Arab states that has a peace treaty with Israel. The two have a long history of close security ties.

The embassy was closed shortly after Israel hastily repatriated the guard under diplomatic immunity to prevent Jordanian authorities interrogating him and taking any legal action against him. The Israeli ambassador and embassy staff were pulled out.

Jordan maintained that even if the guard had diplomatic immunity that did not mean he could not be punished.Israel has now pledged to "implement and follow up legal measures" in the case and also take action in the shooting of an unarmed Jordanian judge by an Israeli soldier in an incident in 2014, Momani said.

Israel would pay compensation to the three families, he said.

Israel said at the time the armed guard opened fire after being attacked and lightly wounded by the workman, who was delivering furniture at his home within the embassy compound, and acted in self-defence in what Israeli officials called a "terrorist attack".

Israel then said it was highly unlikely it would prosecute the security guard.

Jordanian officials have treated the shooting as a criminal case and say the two unarmed Jordanians - the other was a bystander - were killed in cold blood by the armed guard.

The government statement said the Israeli government had met all of Jordan's demands for the return of the ambassador and the reopening of the embassy.Many Jordanians, in a country where the peace treaty with Israel is unpopular and pro-Palestinian sentiment widespread, were outraged that the guard was allowed to leave and staged protests calling on the authorities to scrap the 1994 peace treaty.

A televised welcome home for the guard and a hero's embrace from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had enraged King Abdullah. In a rare outburst, he accused Netanyahu of using the incident as a "political show" saying it was "provocative on all fronts".

Russia Thursday warned at the U.N. Security Council that the collapse of the Iranian nuclear deal would send an "alarming" message to the world and compromise efforts to persuade North Korea to scrap its nuclear arsenal.

Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov told a council meeting on non-proliferation that the 2015 deal known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action was a major diplomatic achievement.

"Clearly the failure of the JCPOA, especially as a result of one of the parties ... would be an alarming message for the entire international community architecture, including the prospects for dealing with the nuclear problem on the Korean peninsula," Lavrov said.

President Donald Trump Friday agreed to again waive U.S. nuclear-related sanctions on Iran, but demanded that U.S. lawmakers and European allies fix the "disastrous flaws" in the deal.

Washington is concerned that the deal, thrashed out over 12 years of talks, does nothing to punish Iran over its ballistic missile program, interference in regional conflicts or human rights abuses at home.

Russia, one of the six world powers along with the United States that signed the deal with Iran, dismissed U.S. concerns as politically-motivated.

"We cannot for the benefit of political agendas of certain countries abandon a genuine achievement of international diplomacy," Lavrov said.

At a Moscow press conference this week, Lavrov said that North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un will not agree to give up nuclear weapons in exchange for lifting sanctions if the same arrangement with Tehran collapses.

"If this arrangement is taken away and Iran is told: you remain within the framework of your obligations and we will reimpose sanctions - then put yourself in North Korea's place," Lavrov said.

In his address to the council, U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said the nuclear deal was being "questioned" and stressed it was in the world's interest that the agreement "be preserved."

Daud Salman and his family stayed put in their Iraqi village despite years of regular clashes between tribes, but when a stray bullet wounded his son, it was time to move.

In the north of Basra province, "bullets talk," he said.

Feuds between the region's half-dozen tribes often flare into pitched battles with assault rifles and machineguns, killing bystanders and driving a never-ending cycle of revenge attacks.

Security forces, fearing reprisals, rarely intervene.

The region near Iraq's southern border with Kuwait has long been the scene of inter-tribal battles over business disputes, questions of honour or even football matches.

But with security forces deployed to the country's north to battle the Islamic State group (IS), Basra residents caught in the crossfire say they feel abandoned.

"Peaceful families that have no weapons can't live," said Daud, 41.

The clashes have transformed residential areas into battlefields, he said.

It was during yet another gunfight that Daud's son Ali, 15, took a bullet to the shoulder as he stood in front of the family home.

That finally prompted the family to move to Basra city, away from the tribal areas.

Residents of the province's north say security forces are powerless to halt the clashes.

In the absence of heavily armed military and federal police forces, "local police are reluctant... to get involved in these battles because there is nothing to protect them," said provincial council member Ghanem Hamid.

Even in situations where they could prevent the violence, police officers -- many of whom hail from the tribes involved -- hesitate to intervene for fear of later reprisals.

Haydar Ali, a 34-year-old engineer, suggested deploying soldiers and policemen from other provinces "who have no social relations or tribal ties that could affect their role".

Residents have called on security forces to confiscate weapons, but regular raids have had little impact on the vast numbers of arms circulating in the province.

Tribes in Basra, the only province of Iraq with access to the sea, obtained a glut of weapons when the army of the late Saddam Hussein withdrew from Kuwait in 1991 in a hasty retreat.

They further boosted their stockpiles following the US-led invasion in 2003, said Sheikh Abbas al-Fadhli, who advises the provincial governorate on tribal affairs.

The tribal disputes have a direct impact on Basra's economy.

Clashes in the oil-rich region, a base for several foreign companies and oil refineries, have caused many to suspend operations, said General Jamil al-Shomary, an army commander in Basra.

"A tribal fight can close down roads for three or four days," preventing people from reaching work, he said.

"There have even been attacks against oil companies."

- 'Condemned by society' -

Ali said putting an end to the violence would also require a change in mentalities.

"Criminals and people who provoke tribal clashes need to be condemned by society before they're condemned by the courts," he said.

Teacher Saadoun Jassim al-Ali, 46, blamed "lawlessness and impunity" that had allowed instigators of clashes to remain at large.

Sheikh Mohammad al-Zidawi, an elder of the Bu Zayd tribe, said "the wide availability of weapons" was to blame.

He is a member of a committee set up to mediate between tribes.

In 2017, "it resolved 176 tribal disputes, including some that had lasted 15 years," he said.

The committee organises meetings between dignitaries from tribes involved in disputes.

Families of slain tribal members spend hours wrangling over the "blood price" -- financial compensation for their bereavement -- or the banishment of certain tribal members.

Kirk Sowell, a political risk analyst who publishes Inside Iraqi Politics, said the Hashed al-Shaabi paramilitary coalition set up to fight IS was complicating matters.

"Many of the myriad of Hashed groups are turning into local mafias," he said.

"Basra has both a major tribal violence problem and (a problem with) organised crime."

Mortar fire on a town in northern Syria held by Turkish-backed rebels wounded at least 14 people in a psychiatric hospital, a monitor said on Friday.

The Thursday evening fire on the town of Azaz just across the border from Turkey came after Ankara bombarded the adjacent Kurdish-held enclave of Afrin for five straight days ahead of a threatened invasion.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based monitor of the war, said the mortar rounds were fired by the Syrian Democratic Forces, a US-backed alliance dominated by the Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG).

But SDF spokesman Mustefa Bali denied that the alliance fired the rounds that hit the hospital, when asked by AFP.

Observatory chief Rami Abdel Rahman said most of the wounded were among the more than 100 patients being treated at the hospital, many for post-traumatic stress disorder resulting from Syria's near seven-year civil war.

Paramedics transferred the wounded patients to a nearby clinic, an AFP correspondent reported. One had lost several fingers.

The mortar fire destroyed a second storey wall of the hospital, showering the beds of the ward with debris.

Turkey has said repeatedly this week that an operation to oust the YPG from the Afrin enclave is imminent and has massed troops and armour on the border.

It regards the YPG as an offshoot of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), an outlawed rebel goup that has waged a deadly insurgency in southeastern Turkey since 1984.

The YPG, which also controls a much larger stretch of the border region further east, has vowed to defend the enclave.

Russia has some 300 military observers deployed in Afrin and, on Thursday, Turkey's army and intelligence chiefs held talks in Moscow that were seen as an essential precursor to any invasion.

A German rapper turned Islamic State fighter who reportedly married the FBI translator hired to spy on him has been killed in an airstrike in Syria, a US-based monitoring group has said.

Denis Cuspert, who performed under the stage name Deso Dogg, became one of the extremist group's most famous Western fighters, appearing in numerous propaganda videos including one that apparently pictured him with a man's severed head.

The German-Ghanaian was killed on Wednesday during an airstrike in the town of Gharanij in Syria's Deir Ezzor province, said a statement from the pro-IS Wafa' Media Foundation translated into English by the SITE monitoring group.

The jihadist group also posted eight graphic photographs on the Telegram messaging app that it said were of his bloody corpse, SITE said.

Cuspert's death has been reported before, including by the Pentagon which announced he had been killed in an airstrike in Syria in October 2015. It later acknowledged he appeared to have survived the attack.

Jihadist sources in April 2014 also said Cuspert had been killed in Syria but they later retracted the claim.

Daniela Greene, an FBI translator with "top secret" security clearance, allegedly sneaked off to Syria in June 2014 to marry Cuspert after she grew attracted to the extremist while spying on him, according to US court documents.

Greene, who was arrested on her return to the US less than two months after travelling to Syria, pleaded guilty to "making false statements involving international terrorism" and served a two-year prison sentence.

Cuspert had pledged an oath of loyalty to IS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi and was a chief recruiter of German fighters.

US officials have said Cuspert had made threats against former US president Barack Obama and US and German citizens, and had also encouraged Western Muslims to carry out IS-inspired attacks.

King Salman bin Abdul Aziz on Wednesday issued a royal decree in coordination with the Ministry of Justice that requires all government bodies and authorities to limit the requirements for issuing case closers in the courts.
According to a statement released today by the Ministry of Justice, the royal decree directed that a mechanism be developed to replace submitting applications for case closers.
The mechanism is expected to be ready within no more than 90 days to limit the overflow of proceedings and disputes at the court.
A study conducted by a special committee for this matter revealed that the large number of requirements for case closers received by courts from government bodies for reasons that were adequate in the past are no longer valid in the presence of modern technology that links different agencies to each other.
The Ministry of Justice said the royal decree supported the goal of “limiting the flow of lawsuits in courts,” which is part of the National Transformation Program 2020 and the Kingdom’s Vision 2030.
Minister of Justice and Chairman of the Supreme Judicial Council Walid Al-Samaani, believes the royal decree will contribute to finding a solution to the overflow of case closer requests in courts, which isn’t part of their original duty of resolving disputes.
“In addition to that, some case closers and disclaimers can easily be finalized without involving the court, and in a manner that serves the purpose of the government bodies submitting these case closers,” he added.
The ministry pointed out that more than 20 kinds of case closer requests from almost 30 government bodies and others are sent to the courts without coordinating with the Ministry of Justice.
It highlighted that the royal decree concerns all government departments and bodies and aims to review decisions issued by courts for case closers; improve the performance of these bodies in terms of verifying facts and making the right decision; ensure case closers are not requested from a court without coordinating with the ministry to hold joint meetings with the government bodies; find solution for problems; and develop agreements in this regard.

Novak Djokovic hit out at tournament organizers after he won his survival of the fittest battle with Gael Monfils to reach the third round.
The former world No. 1 saw off the Frenchman’s challenge 4-6, 6-3, 6-1, 6-3 win in 2 hours 45 minutes on the Rod Laver Arena. But while he was very happy with the win, he was angry at being made to play in temperatures that hovered around 40 Celsius (104 Fahrenheit), prompting Djokovic to say a safety limit had been reached for the players.
“People might say at this level you have to be as a professional tennis player fit,” Djokovic said.
“It’s the beginning of the season. You work and train hard to be able to sustain these kind of conditions, to be tough.
“But I think there is a limit, and that is a level of tolerance between being fit and being, I think, in danger in terms of health. It was right at the limit.”
The extreme elements made it a desperate struggle just to finish the match with Monfils looking the worse for wear early before Djokovic had enough in the tank to win on his fourth match point in a gruelling eight-minute final game.
“It was brutal conditions and we both suffered, it was a big challenge for both of us,” Djokovic said.
“Gael is one of the best athletes in our sport but he was not at his best in the second and third sets. It was about just hanging in there and try to use every opportunity.”
He pleaded with tournament officials to step in next time the heat gets too much.
“There are certain days where you just have to, as a tournament supervisor, recognize that you might need to give players few extra hours until (the temperature) comes down,” he said.
“I understand there is a factor of tickets. If you don’t play matches, people will be unhappy.”
There were no retirements due to the heat on Day 4, however, and some players were even unfazed by the conditions.
One of those was Roger Federer.
The defending champion had the benefit of an evening start, when the temperatures had cooled. And he made the most of the better conditions brushing past Germany’s Jan-Lennard Struff 6-4, 6-4, 7-6.
Federer, 36, broke serve once in each of the first two sets but had to recover from a break down in the third before sealing victory in the tie-break.
Asked if he had requested an evening match, Federer said: “It’s not my call, it’s [the tournament officials’] call.
“I wouldn’t have minded playing during the day because if you want to get to the top, you’ve got to thrive in all conditions.”
On the victory against Struff, the Swiss sensation added: “I knew about him going in. I’ve practiced with him, played singles and doubles against him too so you have the information you need.”

The Delhi-based Mail Today led with “Surrender” in bold red. Mumbai Mirror opted for “Disaster Waiting to Happen”. Mid-day chose “India lose, Kohli loses it!” Only the Bangalore-based Deccan Herald went for humor, “Lungi wraps it up for South Africa,” said their headline. Lungi, in addition to being the first name of South Africa’s latest pace ace, is a sarong worn in the south of India.
These were not the sort of headlines Virat Kohli has grown used to over the past couple of seasons, as India swept all before them at home. They certainly are not what he would have chosen to read the morning he was named ICC Cricketer of the Year for 2017. But it was not just the headlines that savaged a team that has already lost twice as many Tests in 2018 as they did in the two previous years.
Much of the coverage dealt with Kohli’s behavior at the post-match press conference. He admitted South Africa had thoroughly outplayed his team, and answered every question lobbed his way, until the selection debates that have shadowed this entire tour came into the picture.
“How much does this loss hurt, that despite having that formula (that worked in similar conditions back home), you could perhaps not get the best XI out and win this match?” he was asked.  
“What’s the best XI?” he asked back, clearly irked by the line of questioning.
The journalist continued: “Was it your best XI?”
Kohli responded: “But if we had won this, was this the best XI?”
“Again, It’s a pitch that was much more subcontinental,” said the journalist.
“I’m saying that we don’t decide the XI according to the results,” said Kohli.
“You tell me the best XI and we’ll play that. I’m saying the loss obviously hurts. But you make one decision and you back it. Didn’t we lose in India? We had the best XI there. Whoever plays should be good enough to go out there and do the job for the team. That’s why we’ve got such a big squad. Because we believe in their abilities and they are good enough to be at this level, but you need to do that collectively as a team. We played with teams before that have looked really strong, and have lost as well. So, I certainly don’t bend toward that opinion at all.”
One fire doused, another was set alight. One of the local scribes pointed to the inconsistency in Indian selection, with different XIs having played in each of the 34 Tests in which Kohli has led.
“To win Test matches you need consistency, and you have been lacking that part,” he said. “How would you say that you will continue changing your team and still expect different results?”
It was more statement than question, and Kohli snapped.
“How many Test matches have we won out of 34?” he shot back. “21 wins (20 in reality). Two losses (there have been five). How many draws?”
“How many in India?” asked the journalist, not taking a backward step.
“Does it matter?” said Kohli. “Wherever we play, we try to do our best. I’m here to answer your questions, not to fight with you.”
With the greenest of pitches awaiting India at The Wanderers next week, that line of inquiry is not going to go away any time soon.
YOUNG GUNS
Three of the top-order batsmen selected for this series — Shikhar Dhawan, Cheteshwar Pujara and Rohit Sharma — average less than 30 in the four countries where India have struggled the most in recent times — South Africa, Australia, England and New Zealand. Since the turn of the decade, they have won one and lost 17 of 24 Tests played in those countries.
Given such underwhelming records, I asked Kohli whether he was tempted to look outside the current playing group, and consult someone like Rahul Dravid, the former batting great who now coaches both the Under-19s and the A team.
After all, Kohli himself was drafted into the ODI side at 19, soon after he led India to Under-19 glory, because the selectors felt he was someone they could build the team of the future around. At the time, he was picked ahead of those with far more impressive domestic records.
“We will have to sit down and discuss those things,” said Kohli. “It almost has to be a madness to be able to win away from home. And you have to live that every minute, every day of being on tour. It is a very individual thing, but we need to discuss this as a team for sure.
“The selectors will come into the conversation as well when we are looking at planning for future tours, because we have a lot of cricket away from home. This was not the only tour.”
Shreyas Iyer, a 23-year-old who has played three ODIs and who averages 54 in first-class cricket, is one of those on the fringes. Another romantic option, for a country that capped Sachin Tendulkar at 16, would be Prithvi Shaw, currently leading the Under-19s at the World Cup in New Zealand. He already has five first-class hundreds in a career that is only nine games old.
Back in 1996, on a tour of England, Rahul Dravid and Sourav Ganguly were thrown into the deep end. It would be a big surprise if Kohli did not think of a new swimmer or two before he heads to England in late June.

Rory McIlroy’s patience was tested Thursday on his comeback and he needed three late birdies to register a 3-under 69 that left him three strokes behind first-round leaders Tommy Fleetwood and Hideto Tanihara at the Abu Dhabi HSBC Championship.
Starting on the 10th hole, McIlroy made 11 straight pars, which included a three-putt par on the par-5 18th.
Fleetwood, the defending Abu Dhabi champion and last year’s European Tour money-list winner, continued his excellent form by hitting all 18 greens in regulation.
There was a five-way tie for third place with Fabrizio Zanotti, Ross Fisher, Thomas Pieters, Bernd Wiesberger and Sam Brazel shooting 67s.
Top-ranked Dustin Johnson drove his ball into a lake at the ninth, his closing hole, to finish with a 72. Matt Kuchar was also on level-par while Justin Rose went one better with a 71.
McIlroy, who hit 17 greens in regulation, collected his first birdie of the day by making an uphill 15-foot putt at the third and made further birdies at the seventh and eighth.
“First competitive round in over 100 days so it’s a little bit different,” said McIlroy, who last played at the Dunhill Links Championship in Scotland on Oct. 8. “But I did well. I stayed patient.
“I gave myself loads of chances. Really pleased. I played very solid. I think I only missed one or two greens, drove the ball well and the iron play was pretty good. So just need to keep doing that over the next three days and I should have a chance.”
Fleetwood said he had control of his ball throughout.
“It was very good . very stress-free,” he said. “Played really well from start to finish.
“Felt like I did what you need to do well around this golf course, which is drive it well, hit your irons, but you can’t really be too greedy all the time. My pace putting was really good. (Hitting) 18 greens doesn’t happen very often so nice to do it around here.”

Royal Guard Commander Brigadier Shaikh Nasser bin Hamad Al Khalifa received today Commander of the French Naval Forces in the Indian Ocean Admiral Dider Piaton.

Brigadier Shaikh Nasser welcomed him, lauding outstanding relations of friendship between Bahrain and France.

Council of Representatives Speaker Ahmed bin Ibrahim Al Mulla today received Japan’s outgoing Ambassador to Bahrain, Kiyoshi Asako, and attached significance to promoting cooperation with countries of the Asia-Pacific Group amid the current economic challenges seen by the region. 

The Speaker praised the 84-year-old bilateral relations, pointing out the parliamentary diplomacy role in broadening cooperation and encouraging investments in various fields. 

He welcomed the Japanese Embassy’s role in boosting cooperation, wishing Ambassador Asako success in his new diplomatic missions. 

Council of Representatives Speaker Ahmed bin Ibrahim Al Mulla today received Malaysian Ambassador to Bahrain, Agus Salim Haji Yusuf, and praised the Bahraini-Malaysian relations and the importance of enhancing parliamentary cooperation. 

The Speaker stressed the Parliament’s support for promoting economic and investment relations and benefiting from the Malaysian expertise in financial, tourism and cultural fields. 

The Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) Council of foreign Ministers will hold an emergency meeting on Sunday in Jeddah at the request of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia to discuss the repercussions of the launching of a ballistic missile by the Houthi militias on Riyadh.

A preparatory meeting at the delegates level will precede the ministerial session to discuss its draft final communiqué.

OIC Secretary General, Dr. Youssef bin Ahmed Al-Othaimeen, said that the meeting will highlight the OIC stance regarding the repeated attacks by the Houthi militias on the Saudi territories.

The Ministerial Contact Group on Yemen will convene on the sidelines of the ministerial meeting to discuss the political, security, and humanitarian developments in Yemen.